Lectures on Reason and Revelation. 



LECTURES 



Reason and Revelation, 



DELIVERED IN 



ST. ANN'S CHURCH, NEW- YORK, 



DURING THE 



REV. THOMAS S. PRESTON. 



You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." — St. John viii. 32. 




/° NEW- YORK : 
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE, 
126 Nassau Street. 
1868. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
District of New- York. 



Contents. 



Page 

Introduction, 9 

lecture first. 
The Office of Reason, 51 

lecture second. 
Relations of Reason and Faith, ... 84 

lecture third. 
Conditions of Revelation, 124 

lecture fourth. 
Revelation and Protestantism, . . . 166 

lecture fifth. 
Revelation and the Catholic Church, . 215 



Introduction. 



Introduction. 



N the following lectures it is the aim 
of the author to set forth, in a 
clear and concise manner, a sim- 
ple argument whereby the claims of the 
Catholic Church are substantiated by reason 
alone. In the midst of the excitements of 
our day some of the plainest truths are for- 
gotten, and men hold opinions or pass to 
conclusions without any logical grounds 
whatever. They even sometimes contradict 
the propositions which are self-evident to 
reason in their zeal for intellectual progress 
and emancipation from the thraldom of the 
past. That which is new is sought after, 




10 



Introduction. 



even though it overthrow the belief of truths 
heretofore generally admitted. We are not 
believers in total depravity, and have, there- 
fore, great confidence in the good which 
still remains in human nature. And as we 
know that God's grace is ever with man to 
assist him to the knowledge of the truth, and 
to lead him in the way of virtue, we have 
great hopes that the intellectual and moral 
movements of our day will guide the honest 
and sincere mind to the true light which is 
its only illumination. It is a great mistake 
to suppose that the Catholic Church requires 
of any man that he should do away with his 
reason, or cease to exercise those powers 
which God has given him for the proper 
appreciation of truth and goodness. To 
man's intelligence revelation is addressed, 
and every new light from above only serves 
to enlarge the thirst for knowledge. The 



Introduction. 



divine ways are ever harmonious, and the 
supernatural truth will never contradict the 
natural. The argument of these lectures 
depends upon the force of reason alone. 
We briefly explain the nature of human 
reason and the sphere of its operation. We 
show how the divine revelation gives its un- 
erring evidence, to which a just intelligence 
must submit. We vindicate all the natural 
powers, and defend the exercise of their just 
prerogatives. God, speaking to man, is 
bound to give him unmistakable signs that 
He is speaking, and that no deceiver is im- 
posing upon us. When these signs are given, 
then we are bound to believe the divine tes- 
timony, and entirely to accept truths which 
the veracity of our Maker vouches for. Pri- 
vate judgment has its full scope, as to it are 
clearly presented the tokens of every super- 
natural intervention. The extrinsic credi- 



12 



Introduction. 



bility of doctrines proposed to faith is thus 
assured to the full conviction of the under- 
standing. If we go on to say that reason 
assured of a revelation cannot then be the 
judge of the intrinsic credibility of a dogma 
clearly revealed, we only say that reason 
must act in its own sphere, and that the 
finite must not venture to measure the in- 
finite. 

It seems to us that no logical objection can 
be made against such a restriction of private 
judgment. If man, by his unaided powers, 
could find out all necessary truth, there 
would be no need of a revelation. Of things 
beyond the scope of his understanding man 
can certainly be no judge, while it is equally 
certain that the word of God can never 
deceive. 

It is also a great misunderstanding to sup- 
pose that Catholics are not allowed to use 



Introduction, 



13 



their reason, or that faith has taken the place 
of our ordinary intelligence. So far from the 
truth is this supposition, that the aim of the 
present work will be to show that Catholics 
alone are the followers of true reason, always 
yielding obedience to its just dictates, and 
never swerving in any way from its rigid 
conclusions. The Catholic faith presents all 
its unanswerable claims before the mind, and 
then, as it appeals to our natural sense of 
truth and justice, it cannot contradict itself 
by doing away with the very faculty which is 
made the judge of its pretensions. Reason, 
rightly understood, leads with certainty to 
the light of revelation, and that light does 
in no way extinguish the spirit or vitality of 
nature. There is full scope for the play of 
the highest intelligence, not in the contradic- 
tion of evidence clearly established, nor in 
doubting truth already manifest, but in the 



14 Introduction. 

constant and daily increasing appreciation of 
the beauties of God's revelation whereby all 
our faculties are brought into perfect har- 
mony. There is neither manliness nor wis- 
dom in the state of perpetual doubt which 
appears to be chosen by many as the exercise 
of a precious liberty. The Catholic believes 
because he has evidence of the divine power 
and goodness, and in the very highest exer- 
cise of reason bows down to God and Him 
only. No human organization has a right to 
bind our consciences, and no body of men 
can form or direct our faith. God alone is 
our master, whose word is a law to our un- 
derstandings and our hearts. The church is 
recognized by us because He has established 
it, and given to it authority to teach in His 
name, and we are ever ready to give to any 
honest mind a reason for the faith we hold 
and profess. 



Introduction. 



Such principles, united with the earnest 
hope of doing good, have led the author to 
prepare and deliver the following lectures. 
There is no one whose sphere of influence is 
so limited that he may not be of some service 
to his fellows, especially in a day like ours, 
when questions of the most vital nature are 
agitating mankind. The argument chosen 
has necessarily been placed in the most con- 
cise form and adapted to a popular discourse. 
Reason is first examined, that our ideas of 
its nature and office may be cleared from all 
obscurity, that we may have a just notion of 
its powers and the sphere in which they 
operate. It is secondly demonstrated that 
faith, properly understood, can furnish no 
contradiction to the reason, since it moves in 
its own plane and depends upon supernatural 
light. If we have no other teaching than 
that of pure nature, then there is no scope 



i6 



Introduction, 



for faith. If God has made a revelation, then 
He must also attest it by proofs sufficient to 
convince our understanding. 

The third lecture asks from reason the 
conditions of a revelation, on the supposition 
that God were to make one to man. For it 
is evident that the communication of new 
and important truth must be in accordance 
with the laws of reason and the principles of 
evidence. Having settled these preliminary 
points, we are prepared to determine if God 
has been pleased to make a revelation, and to 
examine closely the systems of Protestantism 
and Catholicity, that we may know which 
bears the stamp of divine authority. There 
are really no other systems which present 
themselves before us as claiming to represent 
the divine teacher who is the founder of 
Christianity. Those who reject our Lord 
Jesus Christ in His person and office can 



Introduction. 



17 



scarcely be said to believe in any revelation at 
all, and, therefore, offer no proof to the reason 
for the belief in any thing supernatural. A 
revelation, then, being supposed, the question 
is between Protestantism and Catholicity. 
They are contradictory, and cannot stand to- 
gether. If one be true, the other is false. 
So we are prepared to determine which of 
the two complies with the conditions which 
reason itself suggests, and, therefore, to which 
of the two the honest mind should submit. 
If it be shown that the Protestant religion 
does not meet with any of the necessary con- 
ditions of revelation, and that it cannot give 
any sure proofs of divine mission, then it is 
demonstrated that it is not of God. If, on 
the contrary, the Catholic Church answers to 
every test of reason, and satisfies every just 
demand, while it presents unerring signs of 
its divine origin, then every heart which 



iS 



Introduction. 



seeks for light and peace should at once cast 
aside the chains of prejudice and follow 
where reason and conscience guide. We are 
quite confident that no other course can meet 
the approval of an enlightened understand- 
ing. 

In the necessarily brief and rapid plan 
which has been marked out, it may appear to 
some that we have passed cursorily over im- 
portant arguments, while we have been oblig- 
ed to repeat many statements which recur in 
each lecture. These defects are hardly to be 
avoided, when, in five short and popular dis- 
courses, truths so fundamental are brought 
forward and principles so essential are ex- 
plained. Every one will follow the bent of 
his own mind. We have sought to meet a 
class of difficulties which have stood in the 
way of the conversion of many, and to open 
a train of thought suited to the needs of mul- 



Introduction. 



19 



titudes with whom our lot has been cast. It 
would be far from our intention to do in- 
justice to any religious system, or to misre- 
present any of its characteristics. The fair 
and conscientious reader may decide whether 
Protestantism be that which we have de- 
scribed it, since notorious facts alone have 
been the basis of our judgment. We believe 
that the general opinion of mankind will sus- 
tain our propositions. Two objections, how- 
ever, may arise, which, for want of time in 
the delivery of the lectures, we desire to 
answer more fully in this place. It may be 
said that it is unfair to give to the Catholic 
Church the credit of the miracles of Christ 
and His apostles, and at the same time to re- 
fuse their testimony as in favor of Christian- 
ity in general, including Protestantism. 

Secondly. It may be objected that the 
miracles of Christ are not sufficient to sub- 



20 



Introduction. 



stantiate the claims of the Catholic Church, 
from which men should demand signs and 
wonders in every age. For the better eluci- 
dation of our subject, both these objections 
need to be considered at some length. 

i. It cannot be denied that Jesus Christ 
came into this world to introduce a revela- 
tion whereby new and most precious truth 
was to be communicated to men. He came, 
therefore, to reveal a complete and harmo- 
nious system, which, for the good of the world, 
was to be preserved to the end of time. Any 
other view of His mission would be un- 
worthy of His divine character, and incon- 
sistent with the means He employed to found 
His system of religion. For He, the Son of 
God, not only became man, but humbled 
Himself to the most ignominious of deaths. 
In this view are, however, contained two 
things, either of which is fatal to Protestant- 



Introduction. 



2 I 



ism. First, the doctrines He taught and for 
which He gave up His life must, of necessity, 
for mone harmonious whole, not to be broken 
or impaired without vital injury. A part of 
Christian doctrine cannot be called Christian- 
ity. It may be an approximation to it, and 
be true as far as it goes ; but it cannot be 
called the religious system introduced into 
this world by Christ. And sometimes the 
suppression of one doctrine neutralizes any 
benefit to be derived from the admission of 
another. Now, Protestantism delivers no 
system of religion, since, in its various phases, 
there is a tissue of contradictions which leave 
nothing for a result. We have said, and with 
all sincerity, that it witnesses to no doctrine 
whatever, because there is no doctrine, not 
even the divinity of Christ, which is not de- 
nied by one or more of the Protestant sects. 
It would be difficult, then, to see how the 



22 



Introduction. 



miracles wrought to prove the mission of our 
Lord and His Apostles could be adduced 
as evidence in favor of a religious system 
which, taken in the aggregate, has no articles 
of belief. And if it be said that every Pro- 
testant church should stand upon its own 
feet, and be judged on its individual merits, 
we reply that such a course, while it would 
be illogical, would not help the matter in any 
way conceivable. It would be illogical, in 
examining a great system held in common by 
a vast multitude of adherents, to exclude any 
of the members from the responsibility of 
evils directly flowing from the principles 
adopted by all. If the system destroys all 
unity in doctrine, then all who follow the 
system are involved in the common discord. 
It would not help the matter, because even if 
there be shown a body of consistent doctrine 
in any particular Protestant Church, that 



Introduction 



23 



alone would not prove that the doctrines 
were true or that they were delivered by 
Jesus Christ. If the principle of Protestant- 
ism which allows each and every man to 
judge of the intrinsic credibility of all dog- 
mas were eschewed, then there remains no 
need of argument against Protestantism. 
We do not deny that the miracles of Christ 
and His Apostles may be adduced to prove 
the truth of any doctrine really revealed by 
Him. And there are those among Protes- 
tants who accept many such doctrines which 
they have unconsciously received from the 
Catholic Church. The only question be- 
tween us is regarding two opposing systems. 
Can the founder of Christianity be supposed 
to have introduced into the world such a com- 
plex of negations, in which there is no room 
for the defence of positive truth, and where 
unity of doctrine is an impossibility ? This 



24 Introduction. 

is the only point of our argument. We do 
not go into the examination of articles of 
belief, some of which may be true and others 
may be false. 

Secondly. If the true Christianity is not 
only one harmonious creed, but must neces- 
sarily have length of days and perpetuity of 
life, then the religion of Christ, for which His 
miracles may be called to give their sure 
testimony, must come down from Him, and 
be delivered to the world by His authority 
in unbroken succession. Here the novelty 
of Protestantism is destructive of all its 
claims. It was born of the convulsions of 
the sixteenth century, and shocked the whole 
earth by its strange features. The only way 
to articulate Protestantism to the Christian- 
ity of the Apostolic day, is, as we shall see, 
to assert that at the time of the Reformation 
the revelation of Christ had perished from 



Introduction. 



~5 



the earth, or, which is the same thing, had 
become utterly corrupt; and then to assert, 
without the slightest shadow of proof, and 
against all facts, that Protestantism is primi- 
tive Christianity, the favored but short-lived 
religion which about the year one hundred 
forsook the earth, and only returned after a 
lapse of fourteen centuries. This common 
assertion of so many, when stated plainly in 
this form, seems like sarcasm, so absurd is it 
in its very terms. Does not any honest mind 
see that it upsets the divinity of Jesus Christ 
whose promises cannot fail if He be God ? To 
what end did He come upon earth, if thus His 
great revelation was so soon to pass away? 

It is quite evident that the system of reli- 
gion which can be historically traced to Jesus 
Christ, is the only one which can claim the 
sanction of His divine promises, and wonder- 
ful miracles. And such is not Protestantism, 



26 



Introduction. 



which found an origin in convulsions which 
tended to the overthrow of all faith, and 
in principles which are subversive of all 
revealed religion. We do not then refuse 
the testimony of the miracles of Christ to 
the support of Christianity in general, but 
only to the Protestant system, and w T e are 
prepared to prove that all that is received 
as Christianity among men is only part of 
Catholic doctrine, in other words, that Chris- 
tianity is synonymous with Catholicity. 

2. The miracles of our Lord and His apos- 
tles are sufficient to authenticate the Catholic 
Church, if it be once proved that that church 
was founded by Him; for whatever He did 
was in favor of that system which He estab- 
lished. In our fifth lecture, as the reader will 
see, we briefly endeavor to make it evident 
that such is the truth. The argument which 
we advance may be briefly summed up as 



Introduction. 



27 



follows; Christ founded a Church for the 
principal end of teaching and preserving 
His Gospel upon earth. He promised that 
this Church should be upheld by His divine 
power and should continue to the end of 
time. That Church is the Catholic Church, 
because there is none other which descends 
from Him, and because it alone possesses the 
characteristics of the one body which was 
organized by the Apostles. So it seems to 
us that our argument is complete and un- 
answerable. One of two consequences flows 
from the denial of it, either that the promise 
of Christ has failed, together with the corrup- 
tion or destruction of the religion He reveal- 
ed, or that there has been a new revelation to 
take the place of the one made by Himself. 
It will not avail any one to deny that He 
ever established any Church, since this is 
contrary to all facts of which we have any 



28 



Introduction. 



knowledge ; and secondly, if He really did 
not found any church, then the organization 
of one afterward was not only an act of the 
most arbitrary power, but a radical corruption 
of primitive truth. We find in the earliest 
history of the Christian era a church exist- 
ing, and claiming without question the 
very rights and prerogatives which have 
characterized the Catholic Church of later 
days. How did that church start upon its 
extraordinary career, and when did it 
begin its assumptions of power? Why 
was it that nobody was found to protest 
against its usurpations, during the lifetime 
of the very disciples of the Apostles ? In 
any other cause but that of religion, we are 
persuaded that no one would venture to 
advance so absurd an idea ; and why cannot 
men be as honest in doctrinal controversies 
as in all other disputations ? Whether then 



Introduction. 29 

you say that our Lord Jesus Christ founded 
a church, or assume that He did not, he who 
denies the claims of the Catholic faith is 
obliged to confess in any case that Chris- 
tianity became a failure. If the church be- 
came corrupt, then the gates of hell prevailed 
against it ; if the original Christianity em- 
braced no idea of one infallible teaching 
body, then the unauthorized introduction of 
such an one was the most direct evidence of 
its complete destruction. If Christianity did 
fail in either of these ways, then no one can 
be expected to believe the divinity of Jesus 
Christ its founder ; nay more, it will be im- 
possible to receive Him as a true prophet, 
and the consequence is, as we have pointed 
out, the logical rejection of all evidence, and 
the adoption of blank infidelity. So absurd 
and frightful a conclusion is sufficient to 
establish the falsity of premises by which it 



30 



Introduction. 



is reached. God cannot deceive us, nor can 
the first principles of our reason be called in 
question. The objector is driven to the 
dilemma of admitting the authority of the 
Catholic Church, or of accepting the entire 
failure of Christianity, and with such failure, 
the overthrow of even natural religion. We 
hope that these conclusions will be made 
evident in the course of the present brief 
discussion. 

Now if it be really so that the existence 
of Christianity is bound up with the Catholic 
Church, then we have done no injustice to 
claim all the miracles of Christ and His 
Apostles as evidence of the divine mission 
of that church. They proved that the 
system of religion taught by our Blessed 
Lord was from God, that He was God, and 
that He had full power to teach and to in- 
spire teachers, to promise and to perform. If 



Introduction* 3 1 

there is an identity between the Church which 
Jesus Christ founded, and the Catholic Church 
of our own day, then all the signs which authen- 
ticated the words of our Lord, and the Apos- 
tolic preaching, are plainly to be adduced in 
behalf of Catholicity. Prove a break in the 
line of succession, establish any corruption 
in essential doctrine, and our argument is 
overcome ; but alas ! when you have, to your 
satisfaction, brought forward such proofs, you 
look for Christianity and find it nowhere. 
So we justly reason to the unprejudiced and 
conscientious reader, that the miracles of the 
early days are good evidence for the truths 
they vindicated, for the religion of Jesus 
Christ and for none other. We argue that, 
if Protestantism be from God, it must in 
like manner show its unmistakable proofs of 
divine origin, and failing to find these, we are 
compelled to reject all its pretensions. It is 



32 Introduction. 

not true, therefore, that we are obliged to con- 
tinually give supernatural signs and to vindi- 
cate to every age, by miracles, the truth which, 
once clearly revealed, must, in the nature of 
things, stand for ever. In our closing lecture 
we give many proofs of the divinity of the 
Catholic faith. We show its wonderful pro- 
gress and victory over enemies which have 
been arrayed against it on every side, and 
which no mere human power can vanquish. 
We show its supernatural life, not only in this 
remarkable vitality, but also in the purity and 
blessed influence of its doctrine. We de- 
monstrate that it answers to all the con- 
ditions of reason, and satisfies every want of 
the soul. More than this cannot be asked 
of God. A revelation once well authenticat- 
ed will stand until another equally well estab- 
lished shall take its place, and two divine 
revelations made at different times cannot 



Introduction. 33 

contradict each other, any more than God 
can contradict Himself. 

But we are willing to meet the question of 
the objector, and to speak of later miracles 
in this place for the better understanding of 
the whole subject. Let it be understood, 
then, that we do not admit that such miracles 
are necessary to the evidences of the Catho- 
lic Church ; and we are ready to affirm that 
supernatural signs have in every age been 
attendant upon that one body of believers 
which Christ organized and purchased by 
His blood. They confirm the faith of the 
good, sometimes they lead the doubting to 
conversion, and they are always to be found 
on the side of strong faith and high virtue. 
In regard to these miracles a few words will 
certainly be appropriate. 

In the first place, being effects supernatural, 
they stand upon the same foundation as the 



34 



Introduction. 



extraordinary facts we read of in Scripture. 
They depend upon evidence which in every 
case is to be rigidly sifted, that every possible 
care be taken to avoid deception. If the 
evidence be not good, then they cannot be 
accepted, while, if the proofs are satisfactory 
to the reason, they cannot be refused. No 
well-informed person. could say that Catholics 
are disposed to deceive themselves and their 
fellows by counterfeit signs and wonders. 
No greater misfortune can be conceived of 
than such deceit, and nothing but evil car 
flow from it. We demand for all later 
miracles the same confirmation which we ask 
for the wonderful works of Christ. We 
reason justly and consistently in both cases. 
There must be a fact evidently supernatural, 
and this fact must be attested by competent 
witnesses who have no interest to deceive, 
and no power to do so, even if such were 



Introduction. 35 

their intention. Upon such testimony we 
are forced to believe, because we cannot re- 
fuse assent to sufficient evidence. 

Secondly, there can be no prejudice against 
miracles which occur in our own day, any 
more than against those of the Apostolic age. 
We have no reason to expect the same won- 
ders which our Lord wrought, because at the 
beginning of a revelation such signs are more 
especially necessary. But there is no possi- 
ble objection to the continuance of miracles 
whenever the Almighty power shall see just 
cause for them. The Christian religion is a 
divine system, altogether supernatural from 
beginning to end, and therefore it would be 
natural to look for the tokens of God's pres- 
ence. Such tokens were constantly given 
in the old law, where the majestic ritual was 
only a figure of the graces of Christianity. 
Moreover, our Lord expressly declared 



2,6 Introduction. 

that such signs should not be uncommon in 
His dispensation. " Believe you not that 
I am in the Father, and the Father in 
me ? Otherwise, believe for the very 
works' sake. Amen, amen, I say to you, 
he that believeth in me, the works that I 
shall do, he also shall do, and greater than 
these shall he do."* " These signs shall 
follow them that believe : In my name they 
shall cast out devils : they shall speak with 
new tongues : they shall take up serpents : 
and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it 
shall not hurt them : they shall lay their 
hands upon the sick, and they shall recover."t 
Now, certainly incredulity is a fault, and 
unwillingness to accept competent testimony 
is a sin against reason. Once admitting the 
great and stupendous facts which introduced 
Christianity, we shall not be disposed to deny 

* St. John xiv. 11-12. f St. Mark xvi. 17-18. 



Introduction. 



37 



other facts relying upon indubitable evi- 
dence. 

Thirdly. It is easy for any one to satisfy 
himself as to the genuineness of the later 
miracles by an accurate examination of them 
in detail. There have been many extraordi- 
nary occurrences which have obtained popu- 
lar belief, and have enjoyed more or less 
confidence, but have never been subjected to 
any critical examination in order to receive 
ecclesiastical sanction. Miracles received 
and acknowledged by the church, after the 
severe tests to which they are applied, are 
certainly beyond all doubt, and command the 
assent of every reasonable mind. This is 
hardly the place to produce such cases, with 
their proofs, which would fill a large treatise. 
They may be found in the lives of the Saints, 
and in the history of the processes of their can- 
onization. Our Lord raised persons to life who 



38 



Introduction. 



had been dead, but the Gospels only record 
three cases ; His Apostles did the same. Can- 
onized saints have been distinguished by the 
same gift ; such, among others, as St. Ray- 
mond de Pennafort, St. Dominic, St. Philip, 
and St. Francis Xavier, who raised from the 
grave five and twenty persons. We believe 
that the miracles wrought by this latter saint 
are generally admitted. They were instru- 
mental in the conversion of thousands from 
paganism, yet no one can doubt that they 
were testimonies in favor of the religion 
which he preached. The Apostles on the day 
of Pentecost received the gift of tongues. 
We read the same of St. Vincent Ferrer, 
St. Francis Xavier, and St. Lewis Bertrand. 
St. Peter walked upon the sea, as our blessed 
Lord had done ; and St. Peter of Alcantara 
crossed the Tagus as if it was dry land, and 
St. Benno the Elbe. St. Raymond de Pen- 



Introduction. 



39 



nafort crossed the open sea from Majorca to 
Barcelona on his cloak, which he spread upon 
the waters, and on which he sat as if it had 
been an ordinary boat. Nearly all the mira- 
cles of the apostolic day, as well as of the 
prophets in the old law, have been repeated 
over and over again by the same hand of 
God, in the person of His saints. No one 
can with reason deny these facts, which are 
found everywhere in the history of the 
Catholic Church, or refuse to apply to them 
the same tests as these which make evident 
the supernatural power of Christ and His 
Apostles. The first step is to examine well 
the fact reported, and to see if it exceeds the 
forces of nature, because no event which can 
be produced by natural causes is to be referred 
to a supernatural power. The second step 
is to assure ourselves by witnesses in every 
way reliable, that the fact transpired as it was 



40 Introduction. 

reported. Here we believe that the authori- 
ties at Rome will be found far more critical 
and severe than the majority of mankind, 
and any miracle which can pass the test of 
their investigations can safely be considered 
as undoubted. Such miracles are an irresisti- 
ble proof of the divinity of the religion which 
they attend and sanction, for surely God 
could not interpose in favor of any counter- 
feit of His revelation. For example, if St. 
Francis Xavier, one of the first and most 
illustrious members of the Society of Jesus, 
raised the dead to life, as the most unexcep- 
tionable testimony goes to prove, we have a 
right to conclude that the divine favor attend- 
ed the faith which he taught, and for the 
extension of which he gave the whole 
strength of his life. We sincerely believe 
that there is as good evidence that he worked 
such a miracle, as there is that the Apostles 



Introduction. 4 1 

wrought the wonders which are ascribed to 
them. Some Protestants have a very errone- 
ous notion of the feeling of intelligent 
Catholics on this subject. They call us 
superstitious, and suppose that we are ever 
ready to accept any strange or remarkable 
thing which may be reported, without weigh- 
ing either testimony or facts. The truth is 
very far from this. We are not called upon 
by our creed to believe in any miracle which 
has not every sign of authenticity; and to 
such belief, as it is nothing but the conviction 
of our understanding, every reasonable man 
is bound. As Catholics we must have faith 
in the supernatural, and in the power of God 
to work miracles when He shall see fit to 
advance by such means His own glory and 
the good of His creatures. But for the 
acceptance of any particular miracle we are 
guided by the principles of reason, and act 



42 



Introduction. 



not more as Catholics than as intelligent 
beings. There is no article of faith which 
binds us to assent to any such particular 
miracle, which, as a fact, must stand or fall 
by the weight of testimony. 

We do not, therefore, see a flaw in the 
evidence which the Catholic Church presents 
to reason, to establish her mission from God. 
She appears before us at the end of nearly 
nineteen centuries, embracing in her com- 
munion the vast majority of those who be- 
lieve in divine revelation. She binds them 
together in the confession of one faith, which 
is echoed from many lands, from all tribes 
and tongues. This alone is a supernatural 
result for which no human power can ac- 
count. She leads those who follow her 
counsels and obey her laws to the purest and. 
highest virtue, making them faithful to all 
the duties of life, and thus conserving the 



Introduction. 43 

foundations of all social order and the ele- 
ments of all true progress. She speaks of 
divine things, and with an unhesitating voice, 
and shows her clear and uninterrupted descent 
from Jesus Christ, whose authority is com- 
mitted to her hands. No other organization 
can do this with the faintest show of truth. 
She tramples upon no principle of reason, 
and in no way contradicts the light of nature. 
She fulfils the law and the prophets, estab- 
lishing thus a perfect harmony between all 
the genuine manifestations of divine truth. 
She raises man to the highest degree of cul- 
ture in science and art, and although she 
speaks definitely on the things of faith, and 
answers clearly the great questions of his 
soul, she leaves him ever the exercise of the 
whole nobility of his nature. It is no degra- 
dation of his powers, that he should believe 
the voice of God, and by faith look into that 



44 Introduction. 

unseen world where are glories and mysteries 
beyond the vision of simple reason. For 
thus, with every faculty of his being intact, 
he mounts up toward the throne of his great 
Creator, whose beauty is the attraction of his 
soul, and learns to walk in a higher sphere, 
in that light which is the food of angels. A 
system so perfect in itself, so mighty for 
good, so triumphant over evil, can only be 
from the Infinite Mind, the great First Cause, 
from whom creation arose in empty space, 
and order sprang from primeval chaos. 

What shall be said of that system of Chris- 
tianity which is the only rival of the Catholic 
Church, a system of modern birth, which has 
not one cohesive principle of unity, whose 
very foundations are the elements of discord ? 
Such a system has not, and cannot hold the 
minds of men. It is inconsistent with itself, 
and contradictory to the most evident lights 



In troduction. 4 5 

of reason. Led by it into the darkness of 
doubt and unbelief, many a noble mind has 
made shipwreck of all that is godlike. Days 
gloomier than those of paganism have re- 
turned where, in Christian lands, are built 
again temples to the " unknown God," where 
pleasure steals the affections which were 
made for the heavenly paradise, and avarice 
bows down to its sordid shrine the lofty in- 
tellect made to grow strong in the illumina- 
tion of the divine presence. The landmarks 
of faith are fast being swept away, where Pro- 
testantism has so shocked the intelligence 
that it has turned altogether from religion 
and from God. 

Pilgrim, therefore, to a better land, soul 
made for the joys of truth, heart whose re- 
cesses no one but God can fill, why not 
come to the home of faith, where all is in 
harmony with the best instincts of thy nature, 



46 



Introduction. 



where all shall guide thee to thy Maker, thy 
only rest? Time passes with lightning-like 
speed, and the shadows of thy grave already 
encompass thee. Eternity, long and endless, 
is before thee, where the harvest thou hast 
sown on earth must once and for ever be 
gathered. Why, then, hesitate to enter thy 
Father's house, where in plenteous mercy 
thy Redeemer shall meet thee, and open for 
thee the stores of His incorruptible wealth ? 

We are quite persuaded that there are 
many whose reasons are convinced, whose 
wills are not ready to follow the dictates of 
their intelligence. In matters of life, in the 
fluctuations of commerce, in the facts which 
depend upon human faith, they would act 
with far less evidence than that which the 
Catholic Church presents. But here the 
present seems to eclipse the future, early pre- 
judices unhinge the reasoning powers, and 



Introduction. 



47 



human ties hold them back from the great 
need of their souls. The old and changeless 
faith, which alone opens the portals of eternal 
truth, has a forbidding because a strange 
aspect. It bears the sternness of authority, 
to which they are not used, and touches, 
with tender but unflinching fingers, the 
wounds of sin, which the sufferer would fain 
conceal from himself. It offers no incense 
on the altar of human pride, nor makes ac- 
count of wealth, or birth, or station. All 
must go to the hill of Calvary, and the leper 
must find the Jordan wherein he shall be 
cleansed. But tell us, immortal soul, if these 
be not the signs of more than human love, if 
humility be not the way to exaltation, if the 
kingdom be not promised to the meek and 
lowly ! Are not earthly motives unworthy 
of the dignity of thy destiny, when they cloud 
the reason and shut out light from thy 



4 8 



Introduction. 



vision ? Do we not fall below our manhood 
when we refuse obedience to the dictates of 
our understanding, and despise the plain 
convictions of our conscience ? Try the 
Catholic Church to which thy reason leads 
thee, and soon thou shalt find thyself at 
home, where there is no stern master to 
wield the power of a despot over thee, but a 
gentle mother to open every avenue of light, 
and guide thee in every way of purity. 

The age in which we live is full of activity, 
and everywhere are marks of God's good- 
ness. If there be confusion and disorder in 
the moral or political world, the Heavenly 
Spirit of peace is moving upon the chaos. 
The angels of evil are not the only ones who 
are reaping a harvest. The great Redeemer, 
God's only and well-beloved Son, is daily 
triumphing in many a battle, pouring light 
upon the earnest mind, and transforming 



Introduction. 49 

souls to His likeness. Faith must have its 
trials. It is not sight, it is " the evidence 
of things unseen." If, after all that God has 
done, and is still doing, for the Catholic 
Church, we are unwilling to believe, and ask 
for more evidence, are we not unjust to our- 
selves, and unreasonable toward our Creator ? 
More He could not do, unless He were to 
work a miracle before our eyes. And even 
this would, perhaps, no more convince us 
than it did many of the Jews who saw and 
wondered, and then nailed to the cross the 
very hands that so many times brought bene- 
diction on them. So said our Lord, " If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they believe if one rise again from the dead."* 

* St Luke xvi. 31. 



Lectures. 



Lecture I. 



JHE pFFICE OF JlEASON. 

T is the opinion of many persons 
well versed in the religious con- 
troversies of the day that we have 
reached that point when an appeal can be 
made to sound and unbiased reason, and 
that the claims of the Catholic Church need 
only to be made known to be recognized. 
The time was when all religious questions 
were prejudged, and the very name of 
" Catholic" was sufficient to insure condem- 
nation. Arguments from any other quarter 
would be patiently listened to and duly 




52 



The Office of Reason. 



weighed, but the tenets of the ancient faith 
were ruled out of the field of discussion. 
The Protestant Reformation had produced 
this one result. It had not been able to bind 
together its adherents in any one creed, but 
it had succeeded in producing universal hos- 
tility to the church from which they seceded 
and from whose doctrine they revolted. Ju- 
daism and Mohammedanism had a better 
chance than that body which, for fifteen cen- 
turies, was the only representative of Chris- 
tianity. This strange and unnatural state of 
things has, however, begun to pass away, the 
power of prejudice is not so absolute, and 
men are beginning to be willing to reason 
upon the great question for time and eter- 
nity. 

To candid and sincere minds these lec- 
tures are addressed, and they are only asked 
to give to the subject proposed the attention 



The Office of Reason. 53 

which it deserves. If the points of our argu- 
ment are not established by just reasoning, 
then let them fall. If they are unanswer- 
able, the true heart should not hesitate to 
follow the convictions of the understanding. 
In the matter of religion, self-deception is 
momentous in its issues. In questions of 
human science, men may reject the just con- 
clusions, and only deprive themselves of a 
certain amount of knowledge ; whereas wilful 
error in matters of faith may result in the 
ruin of the soul and the subversion of the 
end of its creation. " What shall it profit a 
man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his 
own soul ? Or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul ?" 

Among the various objections to the Ca- 
tholic religion, we meet with one which has 
great weight, and which is as untrue as it is 
specious. It is asserted that our faith is un- 



54 The Office of Reason. 

reasonable, that it destroys the activity of 
the mind, and that no one can embrace it 
without resigning the just powers of reason. 
If this objection were real, it would be a 
sufficient answer to the highest pretensions 
of our faith. The whole cause would be 
settled. A religion which destroys reason 
cannot be from God ; for all faith is proposed 
to intelligence, which cannot here be con- 
ceived of without perception and compari- 
son. Moreover, one truth can never be dis- 
turbed by the introduction of another. That 
which is really true is as certain and invari- 
able as God himself. If reason teaches us 
any truths, revelation cannot contradict 
them. We might then proceed to argue 
that the Catholic faith is not contrary to 
reason, by the careful examination of each 
one of its articles. But the more logical and 
conclusive way is to treat the subject from 



The Office of Reason. 5 5 

its foundations, to retort the argument, and to 
prove the verity of our religion from reason 
itself. If it can be shown that the revelation 
of Christ to the world is only to be found in 
the Catholic and Roman Church, by argu- 
ments addressed to our natural intelligence, 
it will be impossible to establish the objec- 
tion of unreasonableness against our creed 
or any of its parts. 

We therefore bespeak the attention and 
candor of our hearers, promising to assume 
nothing but self-evident principles, and to 
draw no conclusions which are not logically 
contained in our premises. Truth is the 
proper object of intelligence, the great trea- 
sure for which every human mind should 
seek, and without which the loftiest gifts are 
only an accumulation of misery. In this 
course of lectures, we propose to arrive at 
our end by the careful examination of the 



56 The Office of Reason. 

relations of Reason and Faith, by which we 
shall be able to demonstrate the necessary 
conditions of a revelation, and to establish 
the truth that the Catholic Church alone 
answers these conditions. 

Our purpose this evening is to define 
clearly what is meant by Reason, and to show 
what its office is. This is of necessity the 
fundamental part of our argument ; for, among 
the religionists of our day, it is the source of 
much confusion, that men have no clear con- 
ceptions of the terms they use, nor of the 
propositions they affirm or deny. So in dis- 
cussions the combatants are often fighting in 
the dark, accomplishing nothing by the con- 
test, unless the excitement of angry passions, 
always unfavorable to reason. We humbly 
trust that no such excitement shall appear in 
the course of these lectures, and that no 
word shall be uttered except in the interest 



The Office of Reason. 5 7 

of truth alone, which is the common property 
of all mankind, and for which we ought all 
to be willing to live and die. 

We propose, then, to give a clear defini- 
tion of Reason, to show what its natural 
powers are, the use which our Creator ex- 
pects us to make of it, and the great evils 
which result from its abuse. 

r. 

By Reason generally taken, we understand 
that natural and essential faculty of the hu- 
man mind, or that collection of faculties by 
which man knows the truth and judges con- 
cerning it, as far as that truth is contained 
within the powers of nature. This definition 
is quite simple. Man is an intelligent agent, 
gifted with the faculty of knowing and will- 
ing. Truth is the object of that intelligence, 



58 



The Office of Reason. 



and the truths of the natural order are in the 
field in which reason operates. Faith at 
once introduces supernatural truths on the 
authority of God revealing them ; but of 
those we do not now speak, since we are 
considering man with the gifts which belong 
to him by nature alone. 



II. 



What, then, are the natural powers of this 
faculty of knowledge which all mankind con- 
fess we have, and the denial of which is an 
impossibility in logic ? For the denial of 
such a faculty is the use of the very faculty 
denied ; and if we can know nothing with 
certainty, we cannot comprehend the terms 
of an argument which such a denial im- 
plies. This faculty, then, has manifestly its 
limits. Man is not omniscient, and so can- 



The Office of Reason. 59 

not know all things. Yet because there are 
limits to his understanding, it is none the less 
true that there are truths which he can know, 
and of which he cannot logically doubt. 

Those who deny to reason its just powers 
are as much in error as those who ascribe to 
it a force beyond its capacity. There have 
been those who have taken the name of uni- 
versal sceptics, who, asserting the incompre- 
hensibility or inaccessibility of truth, profess 
to doubt of every thing ; although in matters 
of common life they are inconsistent with 
their theories, since practically they follow 
the evidence of their senses, and even that of 
authority. Martin Luther and his first ad- 
herents denied the powers of reason by their 
doctrine of man's fall. Holding human na- 
ture to be utterly depraved, even in its essen- 
tials, by original sin, they not only denied the 
freedom of the will, but, moreover, asserted 



60 The Office of Reason. 

that the intellect had become altogether un- 
fit for the investigation of truth, so that, 
without the light of faith, no verity could be 
established, even in the natural order. A 
doctrine so untrue easily led to the opposite 
extreme, and it is not surprising to find the 
children of the original Protestants contend- 
ing for the all-sufficiency of reason without 
faith. To any reflecting mind it must be 
evident that both these extreme opinions are 
false. It is wholly unphilosophical to sup- 
pose any essential depravation of our nature ; 
since the loss of essentials really amounts to 
destruction. Reason must be fit to discern 
many truths, and is the subject to which any 
revelation must be addressed, while, from the 
finite nature of our being, it is plain that 
there are many things naturally unknown to 
us, which God, who knoweth all things, can, 
at His own pleasure, reveal to mankind. 



The Office of Reason. 61 

This is not the place, in a popular lecture, to 
enter into any of the abstruse discussions 
which either aim to defend the propositions 
of pure philosophy or to refute the errors of 
infidelity. We pass at once, therefore, to the 
conclusion that there are many truths of the 
natural order which are fundamental, and 
which right reason can know with certitude 
without the aid of any supernatural revelation. 
These truths are such as the existence of 
God, the spirituality and immortality of the 
soul, and even the idea of rewards and pun- 
ishments as involved in our moral govern- 
ment. The existence of God can even be 
proved by rigid demonstration, while every 
act of reason presupposes or implies it. 

The finite world, with its admirable order 
and adaptation to its end, proves the existence 
of the Supreme Mind, which is the source of 
unity and beauty. Things dependent are 



62 



The Office of Reason. 



not self-existing, and therefore flow from the 
power of a Creator who must be in His na- 
ture omnipotent and all-sufficient. The hu- 
man mind naturally sees this great primary 
truth, and, with the consciousness of its own 
existence and powers, turns at once to that 
Supreme Intelligence from whom all light 
comes, and for the knowledge of whom it 
was made. That men have depraved the 
idea of God, and have fallen into idolatry, is 
no argument against our proposition. The 
notion of a deity is universal ; and the cor- 
ruption of the primitive truth is owing to the 
influence of animal passions or the perver- 
sion of original traditions. Man has within 
him and around him full evidence of the be- 
ing of one Supreme Creator, who is above all 
His works, and dependent upon none of them. 

So argues even the Holy Spirit in the 
Book of Wisdom. u All men are vain in 



The Office of Reason. 63 

whom there is not the knowledge of God ; 
and who, by these good things that are seen, 
could not understand Him that is, neither by 
attending to the works have acknowledged 
who was the workman ; but have imagined 
either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, 
or the circle of the stars, or the great water, 
or the sun and moon, to be the gods that 
rule the world. With whose beauty if they 
being delighted took them to be gods, let 
them know how much the Lord of them is 
more beautiful than they : for the first author 
of beauty made all those things. Or, if they 
admired their power and their effects, let 
them understand by them that He that made 
them is mightier than they. For by the 
greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, 
the Creator of them may be seen, so as to be 
known thereby."* 

* Wisdom xiii. 1-5. 



64 The Office of Reason. 

Likewise, the Apostle St. Paul argues, in 
the Epistle to the Romans, that even reason 
convicts the idolater of folly. " The wrath 
of God is revealed from heaven against all 
ungodliness and injustice of those men that 
detain the truth of God in injustice : because 
that which is known of God is manifest in 
them. For God hath manifested it unto 
them. For the invisible things of Him, 
from the creation of the world, are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that 
are made ; His eternal power also and di- 
vinity : so that they are inexcusable." * 

It is not necessary for our present purpose 
to dwell longer upon this point. The know- 
ledge of God's existence is so evident to the 
naturally-guided reason that without it we 
can be certain of no truth whatever, and, if 
we have not the certitude of this primary 

* E. Romans i. 18-20. 



The Office of Reason. 65 

verity, we cannot conceive of such a thing 
as revelation, which depends entirely upon 
the character and attributes of God. Some 
other truths which are connected with our 
relation to the Supreme Mind are also dis- 
cernible by the powers of nature. Reason 
comprehends the difference between matter 
and spirit, understands how the faculty of 
knowing and willing is a simple faculty 
which cannot belong to a composed sub- 
stance, and from the spirituality of the soul 
argues even its immortality. The idea also 
of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, is 
inherent in our understanding, and, in a 
more or less perfect state, is universal to 
mankind. Conscience would otherwise have 
no power, and human laws no sanction in 
the established consent of all nations, hea- 
then or Christian. Such truths as these the 
individual reason perceives with full certi- 



66 The Office of Reason. 

tude ; it at once beholds the evidence they 
bring, and acts upon them with as complete 
persuasion as upon the instincts of the 
animal nature or the testimony of the senses. 
Because the mercy of God has made us a 
revelation, and supernatural grace has inter- 
posed, the condition of man in the natural 
order is not thereby changed. Reason has 
its field, its vision, and its laws, and those 
who are left to its light alone are responsible 
to their Maker for the use of that light. All 
men have an idea of the Supreme Being; 
are conscious of their own moral agency, 
which is implied in the very notion of right 
and wrong, and acknowledge, implicitly at 
least, God's moral government. They must 
stand or fall, therefore, in the eyes of the 
Omniscient Judge, by their obedience or dis- 
obedience to the voice of conscience. If 
they give themselves up to the cravings of 



The Office of Reason. 67 



animal passion, and degrade themselves to 
the level of the brutes, and bow down in 
idolatry before gods of wood and stone, 
reason, as well as St. Paul, declares them in- 
excusable. If, with the light of a revelation 
all around them, they refuse the evidence of 
a divine interposition, and even close their 
understandings to the first principles which 
nature teaches, confuse the very notion of 
God, or exalt themselves to an equality with 
Him, they not only turn their intelligence 
from the source of light, but deserve the 
anger of their Creator. Can there be a 
greater impiety than to deny Him from 
whom all things proceed, whose service is 
not only the joy but the duty of every in- 
telligent agent ; and, shutting the eyes to the 
teachings of both reason and revelation, to 
fall down in the darkness of doubt and un- 
belief? 



68 



The Office of Reason, 



III. 

Gifted then with reason and its powers, 
possessed of the knowledge of such impor- 
tant truths, what use does our Creator ex- 
pect us to make of the faculties which 
He has given us? It is self-evident that 
none of His works are without an end. 

He has made us of body and soul, and 
has given us our senses and understand- 
ing. These are to be used, and for the 
purpose for which He gave them to us, 
according to the light which we have. 
Suffering follows sooner or later the trans- 
gression of any natural laws. He who will 
not trust the testimony of his senses is 
worse than a fool. Sharp pain and even 
death may be the result of such wilful 
blindness. Yet we are as much bound to 
use our reason and to follow its guidance 



The Office of Reason. 69 

as to use the knowledge which our senses 
give us. As well might we disobey the 
instincts of nature and refuse our bodies 
the food they demand, or despise the laws 
of gravitation and seek to walk upon the 
air or the waves of the sea, as to deny the 
just conclusions of our reason and substi- 
tute in their place the fictions of imagina- 
tion. As we are moral agents, we cannot 
be held excusable for the infraction of the 
laws of nature, or the principles written in 
our minds by an All-Wise Creator. Let 
us see, then, what we are bound to do with 
that intelligence which God has given us, 
and how far we are accountable. 

1. No one can deny that truth is the one 
object of our understanding; that we have 
a natural longing for it, even as we have 
for happiness. Falsehood is not knowledge, 
and will never satisfy the craving of our 



JO The Office of Reason. 

minds. There are two ways of obtaining 
knowledge — that of the external senses, 
which testify truly as to things within their 
observation, and that of the reason, which 
also gives us certain evidence when rightly 
used. In the order of experience we are 
perhaps first conscious of our own exist- 
ence, then of other dependent existences, 
and through them of that great independ- 
ent and necessary being from whom all 
things proceed. This truth we apprehend 
more or less clearly in every intelligent act. 
The faithful use of this knowledge is not 
only our duty, but is also our only happi- 
ness. Here is the fountain from which 
flow all other truths. The idea of God as 
one supreme, self-existing, and all-perfect 
being contains full food for our highest 
faculties. If in the order of fact we know 
creatures and ourselves first, in the order 



The Office of Reason. 71 

of being we know our God as the source 
of our life and the light of our intellect. 
A supreme being such as our reason shows 
to us must be endowed with all perfections. 
An imperfect God is in reality no God at 
all, since we can at once think of something 
superior to that which is not absolutely 
perfect. Here, then, we have in the view 
of the Deity, all knowledge, all goodness, 
and all power. Nothing can surpass the 
force of His intellect, nothing can be be- 
yond His power, and His will must ne- 
cessarily be the law of all sanctity. To 
such a great and glorious being we owe 
obedience, and in our consciousness of right 
and wrong we find the sanctions of the law 
He has impressed upon our hearts. Thus 
far certainly reason can go ; and when we 
find men covering this primary truth with 
irrational superstitions, or forgetting it in 



72 The Office of Reason. 

the falsehoods of paganism and idolatry, 
we find them really disobeying the voice of 
reason, and by the corruption of nature 
and the demands of passion transgressing 
its laws. We have heard the voice of St. 
Paul declaring such transgressors to be in- 
excusable. 

2. But reason can go further than this, 
and come into a nearer relation with God. 
It can receive a revelation from Him, and be 
an unerring judge of the motives of credibil- 
ity. To the reason God reveals Himself. 
To the brute creation He speaks not. That 
reason, certain of His existence and cogni- 
zant of His ability to reveal, can therefore 
hear the voice of God and distinguish it 
from every other voice ; for the Divine 
Mind which proposes a revelation is bound 
to give unerring proofs of His interposition, 
and of these proofs reason is a competent 



The Office of Reason. 73 

judge. No unreasonable obedience is de- 
manded either of our reasons or of our hearts. 
Miracles, being a deviation from the natu- 
ral laws, and even a transgression of them, 
are a certain proof of divine power which 
can never be used on the side of falsehood. 
Prophecies being the announcement of fu- 
ture events, known only to God, must ne- 
cessarily come from Him. Miracles appear 
to the senses, and if we do not see them 
ourselves, we can examine the testimony 
of others, and make ourselves sure that they 
are intelligent and competent witnesses. 
Prophecies are verified by the event, and 
we are perfectly able to judge of their 
genuineness. These motives of credibility, 
when laid before us, impose upon us an 
obligation which we cannot avoid. We 
are bound to examine them and to follow 
with impartiality the deductions of reason. 



74 The Office of Reason. 

All the truths, then, of revelation are ad- 
dressed to our understanding. We can- 
not weigh them in the balance of reason, be- 
cause, being in the supernatural order, they 
are above reason ; but we can assure our- 
selves .that God has spoken, and, if certain 
of this, yield an implicit obedience to Him 
who of necessity knoweth all things. If we 
do not do this, we act unreasonably, and fol- 
low pride or prejudice instead of the dic- 
tates of intelligence. The Church of Christ, 
if it be that He has established one, must 
come to us with evidence which satisfies our 
reason, and like any other truth be sustain- 
ed by proofs of the divine interposition. 
As God spake by patriarchs and prophets, 
and gave visible and unmistakable signs of 
His power; as He sanctioned the law of 
Moses by wonders in heaven and on earth, 
and moved before the camp of Israel in a 



The Office of Reason. 75 

pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire 
by night, so must He, speaking in these 
last days by His Son, give the tokens of 
divine might and high knowledge such as 
belong to no creature. 

We do not say that these proofs which 
are demanded shall convict every under- 
standing, and leave no probation for the 
moral agent, no trial for the understanding. 
But we do say that they are sufficient to 
convict every sincere mind, and that they 
who heed them not are closing their eyes 
to the testimony of reason itself. Under the 
order of nature as of grace, the freedom of 
the will remains intact, and God accepts 
only a willing service, for none other has 
any merit in His sight. Behold, then, the 
great and noble field of reason which in 
these lectures we propose to make manifest. 
Here is the light of God shining in our 



j6 The Office of Reason. 

intellects, and leading us to Himself, as well 
in the fainter beams of the morning as in 
the full splendor of noon-day. And wher- 
ever He leads us, it is to the possession 
of truth, where there can be no contradic- 
tion or shadow of change. Everywhere 
there is harmony; as in the great universe 
with its million wonders, so in the mind of 
man formed in His image, and made to 
know, love, and enjoy Him. 



IV. 

Much time need not be spent to show 
the evils which flow from the abuse of rea- 
son. They are too self-evident, and in the 
history of our race have been abundantly 
manifest. When man, acting against right 
reason, desires or attempts to deny the exist- 
ence of God, what has he gained for him- 



The Office of Reason, JJ 

self? He has contradicted the voice of 
nature, and has excluded the loftiest and 
purest conceptions from his intellect. There 
have been those who have said that there 
was no God, and who have lived as if there 
were no All-seeing Judge. It is to be doubt- 
ed if any have ever really believed so mon- 
strous and unreasonable a creed. The 
stings of conscience, and the fears of retribu- 
tion even in the life beyond the grave, 
have left them little peace. But if it were 
possible for the soul to banish from itself 
the idea of its Creator, what a blank and 
cheerless life would follow! Where is the 
power of reason to control passion, and 
where are the sanctions of the law of right 
and wrong ? There ceases to be any right or 
wrong. Man becomes like the brutes, only 
worse and more degraded than they, because 
they blindly follow instinct, while he pros- 



y8 The Office of Reason. 

titutes his intelligence to plan crime and 
meditate upon its attractions. To what 
untold horrors may he not descend who 
has thrown off the restraints of reason, and 
banished the idea of his accountability to a 
Supreme Intelligence ! 

Not only have they denied God who have 
in word and deed refused to believe in His 
existence, but they also are practical atheists 
who have made Him less than He is, have 
confused Him with creatures, or have re- 
jected any of His attributes. What has 
been the result of that absurd and unrea- 
sonable doctrine which makes every thing 
that is to be God, or every creature to be 
only a real or apparent emanation from 
Him ? Is it not to deny God to take away 
His perfections, and make Him dependent 
and changeable like the creature ? Is it 
not against all reason to deny the testimony 



The Office of Reason. 



79 



of our senses and the voice of our inward 
consciousness ? Pantheism in any form 
destroys the divine nature, which it iden- 
tifies with man and with the universe, thus 
robbing the one self-existing Being of His 
attributes, and inducing the necessity of 
constant evolutions of the divine substance. 
Such a God ceases to bear the marks of 
divinity, and ceases to command the re- 
spect of creatures who become his equals. 
Let the historian tell of the immorality 
which has flowed from such tenets, but let 
no one but the sufferer tell of the darkness 
of understanding and unrest of soul which 
are the consequence of disobedience to the 
voice of reason. Any theory — be it panthe- 
ism, materialism, or fatalism — which shuts 
out the truth of God's existence and His 
providence in the universe, is the degrada- 
tion of man and all his higher faculties 



8o The Office of Reason. 

Man has the power so to degrade himself. 
There is no light so strong that he cannot 
refuse to see it. Our first parents cast them- 
selves from Eden, with all its treasures, and 
we, their children, can likewise turn the 
fair world into the prison of our misery, 
and the lights of our reason into false bea- 
cons which point us the way to destruction. 

So again, what end has man to serve if 
he blind himself to the beams of revelation, 
when that revelation addresses his under- 
standing with unerring proofs ? If God has 
made special provisions for mankind, and 
by particular grace has called us to a higher 
destiny than that to which our nature en- 
titles us, do we not terribly wrong our- 
selves when we shut our reason to the 
proofs of such an economy of mercy? Let 
reason act freely and with sincerity in the 
search for truth ; let not passion or prejudice 



The Office of Reason. 81 

blind the eye; and the Hand which made 
us will guide us to our end. It is a singu- 
lar fact that Christianity preserves philoso- 
phy and vindicates the teachings of right 
reason, while those who have refused to 
follow the natural light to the portals of 
revelation have at last denied even the truths 
which are plainly deducible from the page 
of nature. 

All is lost when once obedience is refus- 
ed to the convictions of conscience. There 
have been deniers of reason and its attri- 
butes in former days, before the bright beams 
of an Incarnate God — Sun of righteous- 
ness and truth — shone upon the world. The 
principles of philosophy have been denied, 
and theories inconsistent and self-destruc- 
tive have been set up to mislead the minds 
of men. But what was this blindness com- 
pared to that of those who now refuse the 



82 The Office of Reason. 

just conclusions of their own understand- 
ing, and limit the knowledge and power 
of the Supreme Mind, the law of whose ex- 
istence requires that He should be omni- 
scient and omnipotent ? 

Here, then, we come to the conclusion of 
our first lecture. Reason has its office and 
duty, and the light of God shines upon it. 
It is able to know the Divine Hand which 
formed it, and to comprehend, at least in 
some degree, the relations which subsist be- 
tween the Creator and the creature. It is 
able to judge of the motives of credibility, 
and capable of communication with God. 
And whatever the sovereign mercy proposes 
to do with man, we may rest assured that the 
first principles of our nature will never be 
violated, that no revelation will ever contra- 
dict the teachings of reason. With the 
Divine Artificer there is no contradiction, no 



The Office of Reason. 83 

change of plan ; and if the intelligent creature 
is to be raised to a higher sphere, and one 
day advanced to the knowledge and enjoy- 
ment of his Maker's presence, it shall be in 
an unclouded day, and with all the forces of 
reason intact, with freedom of will, and a 
nature elevated but not impaired. 



Lecture II. 



•Relations of JIeason and J^aith. 

N our last lecture we examined care- 
fully, though briefly, the nature and 
office of reason, and sought to es- 
tablish that which it is able to know and 
that which it is bound to confess. We pro- 
ceed this evening to speak of faith, and to 
see if there be any thing in it inconsistent 
with our natural faculties. Our demonstra- 
tion will be very simple, and such as we 
trust shall meet with the conviction of every 
sincere inquirer. 

Let us consider the true meaning of faith, 




Relations of Reason and Faith. 85 

the sphere of its exercise, its perfect con- 
sistency with reason, the right use of reason 
in connection with faith, and, lastly, the abuse 
of reason to its own injury and the destruc- 
tion of faith. 

1. 

Faith is an act of the human mind, giving 
a willing assent to the truths which are 
divinely revealed on the authority of God, 
who reveals them. To such an act the will 
is prevented and assisted by divine grace, 
which is a supernatural help, interfering not 
at all with its freedom, but guiding and en- 
lightening it. No argument need be used 
to show that God, being of necessity infinite, 
is far above His creatures ; that there are 
many truths beyond our sphere of know- 
ledge, and that the Divine Mind, who know- 



86 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

eth all things, is able to make known to us 
what He will. To deny this is to deny the 
being of God, or to make creatures equal to 
Him, which, in other words, is the same 
thing. Neither is there any thing incompre- 
hensible in the idea of grace, since it is only 
that influence which the Author of all truth 
is able to exert upon the intelligent agent 
without the least injury to its freedom. It 
would be strange, considering the attributes 
of God, especially His goodness, if He did 
not thus show love to the works of His hand, 
and seek to help them. The distinction 
between faith and the knowledge acquired 
by reason is manifold. Faith proceeds from 
the principle of grace which assists nature, 
while the knowledge of reason proceeds 
from nature exercising its intelligence. The 
object of faith is that truth, or that complex- 
ion of truths, which are revealed iri a super- 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 87 

natural manner; while the object of know- 
ledge is that truth which man, by the exer- 
cise of his own powers, is able to acquire. 
The formal motive of faith is the authority 
of God, who can neither deceive nor be de- 
ceived, while the truths of the natural order 
are admitted by the force of evidence or de- 
monstration. The end of faith is to elevate 
man, and dispose him to a knowledge and 
fruition of God to which nature does not 
entitle him ; while by reason and science 
he cannot attain to any thing more than an 
abstract knowledge and natural love of his 
Maker. 

In this statement there is nothing repug- 
nant to the principles of reason as we have 
explained them. Man is a moral agent,' 
bound to use the light he has for the end 
of his being. There is no argument which 
can be adduced against the possibility of a 



88 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

revelation, and consequently against the ex- 
ercise of faith. On the contrary, as we shall 
see in the next lecture, it is possible from 
reason alone to argue the probability of a 
special divine interposition. The only ques- 
tion is one of fact. Has God made a re- 
velation, or has He not ? Has man any other 
light to guide him than the simple light of 
nature ? Have the proofs of a revelation, 
which reason requires, been given ? On the 
supposition that they have been given, then 
faith comes into exercise ; and the truths 
which, through divine impulse, it receives 
on the authority of God revealing them, in 
no way conflict with the teachings of nature. 
They cannot do so for two very obvious 
reasons. God Himself is the teacher of all 
truth, both in nature and in revelation ; and, 
secondly, reason can be no judge of facts 
entirely above the natural order. 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 89 



II. 

The sphere in which faith is exercised 
is, then, confessedly a supernatural one. All 
depends upon the fact that God has been 
pleased to hold communication with our race 
in order to guide and elevate it to a super- 
natural destiny. 

Those truths which He has condescend- 
ed to reveal are the object of faith, and 
nothing else. The proofs of a revelation 
are offered to the understanding, and lead 
the honest mind to conviction. Even more, 
the intellect cannot reject the evidence of 
these proofs without at the same time re- 
jecting the first principles of reason, and 
falling into universal doubt, which is an irra- 
tional condition of mind. Yet no one can 
be surprised that, in an order transcending 
the powers of nature, in a merciful interposi- 



90 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

tion of the Divine Being, the act of faith 
should also require the assistance of grace, 
and so become supernatural. Where na- 
ture ends and grace begins no one can 
tell ; for God has never left man without 
the aid of this blessed influence, and per- 
haps there is no one who has been left to 
the resources of pure nature. Moreover, 
the beams of a revelation have from the 
creation enlightened the earth, and have 
in greater or lesser degree pervaded the 
world. In every land, even in the super- 
stitions of paganism, are to be found the 
traditions of early truth, and the evidence 
that man, made in the image of God, has 
been called from the beginning to a high 
destiny. The supernatural character of faith 
is manifest from the certitude which it gives, 
and which far surpasses that of demonstra- 
tion. All men are not able to reason pro- 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 91 

foundly, and yet here unlearned and simple 
peasants may have the knowledge of truths 
transcending the powers of reason, and hold 
them with a certitude surpassing that of 
the proudest philosophers. It is reason- 
able that it should be so, that nature should 
lead to God, and that His greater light 
should produce the most profound convic- 
tion. He who would believe from the mo- 
tives of credibility alone would only assent 
to that which he sees, while faith, to use 
inspired language, is " the evidence of things 
that appear not." Philosophy gives its voice 
and leads to assurance but in its own order, 
while its highest office is to guide the soul 
to the feet of its great Creator, where the 
words of the divine voice are heard, and 
where every shadow of doubt is chased from 
the understanding. Who can know, if God 
knoweth not; and, when I am certain of 



92 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

His voice, have I not an assurance far 
beyond any mere natural certitude ? Even 
the miracles by which the Christian reli- 
gion has been established are to be viewed 
in a two-fold light. As motives of credi- 
bility they rely upon human authority, be- 
cause, appealing to our senses and reason, 
they exhibit unmistakably the presence of 
divine power ; but as objects of faith, they 
demand likewise a supernatural assent on 
the authority of God. It is one thing for 
me to believe, from sufficient testimony, that 
our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, 
and to argue therefrom to His divinity, and 
another to move in love and devotion to 
the risen Saviour, whose victory over death 
is the cause of my justification. 

Yet the act of faith, though made by the 
aid of divine grace, and in the light of evi- 
dence which moves the mind to conviction, 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 93 

interferes in no respect with the freedom 
of the will, but is a free act of a moral 
agent, and, therefore, meritorious before God. 
" By faith," says St. Paul, " the ancients 
obtained a testimony." The evidence is 
extrinsic and mediate. We see the mo- 
tives of credibility, and not the thing re- 
vealed. One is the vision of faith, and an- 
other that of sight ; one our probation in this 
pilgrimage, and another our reward in that 
land of the blessed where we shall see as 
we are seen. These motives of credibility 
do not give a metaphysical evidence like 
that of mathematics, but a moral evidence 
which the rightly disposed mind ought to 
receive, but which does not of necessity 
produce assent. Herein is the trial of man, 
and here the just and sincere are made 
manifest. Man cannot ask of God to see 
with the natural eye the glories of heaven, 



94 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

nor to gaze with an unclouded understand- 
ing upon the truths revealed. He takes 
the word of his Maker, sufficiently authen- 
ticated to him ; he believes it, and by that 
faith is daily led to a nearer and brighter 
view of Him who is the fountain of all light 
and truth. Grace crowns the powers of 
nature and leads them to their perfection. 
" We are now the sons of God, and it hath 
not yet appeared what we shall be. We 
know that, when He shall appear, we shall 
be like to Him, because we shall see Him 
as He is."* 

From what we have said it will also be 
seen that the light which faith gives in no 
way obscures that of reason. The same 
truths may be the object of science and 
of faith. Reason may establish by de- 



* First Epistle St. John, 3 : 2. 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 95 

monstration the existence of God and His 
attributes, the spirituality of the soul, the 
accountability of the creature to the Crea- 
tor, involved in a moral government, and 
revelation may likewise propose to us these 
same primary truths ; yet, while in the 
former case we are called to admit the just 
conclusions of argument, in the latter we 
are persuaded to believe on the authority 
of the divine veracity, which has spoken 
and given its infallible assurance. Cer- 
tain is the truth which reason teaches me, 
but the voice of God gives me grace to ex- 
ercise a higher act of my soul. It is the 
same sun which lights my path in the morn- 
ing twilight as in the blaze of noon, but 
greater is the effulgence of mid-day than 
the faint beams of the dawn. We, then, 
here behold the sphere of faith. It is a 
supernatural act, directed to truths revealed 



g6 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

in a supernatural manner through the pure 
and voluntary mercy of God. It is not 
opinion, for opinion gives no certitude. 
It rises above the evidence of reason, and 
opens the spiritual eyes to a vision more as- 
suring than that of sense — to the light 
which comes from the uncreated sun of 
truth. 

in. 

Faith, as thus explained and operating 
in its proper sphere, cannot be inconsistent 
with reason, since there cannot be any con- 
tradiction. Faith never extinguishes the 
light of right reason, nor even opposes it; 
but, on the contrary, wonderfully enlarges it 
and adds to the stock of natural knowledge. 

i. Faith does not demand from our un- 
derstandings a blind assent, thus putting 
reason altogether out of the way. The ser- 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 97 

vice of religion is a reasonable one, to use 
the very words of Holy Scripture, and any 
other notion of it is an erroneous one. God 
gives us the proofs of His revelation, and we 
are to judge them, and see that the evidence 
is sufficient and such as would lead us to 
action in all the ordinary affairs of human 
life. Besides, the object to be believed must 
be in some manner manifest to the mind. 
It need not be comprehended, nor could the 
conditions of an infinite being be compre- 
hended by a finite mind ; but the truth pro- 
posed must be clearly stated to the reason. 
For example, by evidence which satisfies me, 
(and there can be such evidence,) I learn the 
nature of God's being, that He is one God in 
three distinct persons. I do not understand 
how this is, and why should I wonder that 
I cannot fathom the law of the Divine 
Being? But I can conceive perfectly what is 



98 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

meant by the term " trinity." My reason 
does not oppose it nor furnish any difficulty. 
It would contradict the idea of three human 
persons in one human being, but it has no 
data for opposition to the idea of three di- 
vine persons in one God. So, while blind 
assent is not asked, the truth proposed to 
belief is also stated in a reasonable manner, 
so that the intellect may clearly seize it, and 
it is so proposed that the man who rejects 
it is unreasonable. 

2. We have already, by the course of our 
definitions,- anticipated the assertion which 
we now make, that no truth proposed by 
faith can be in contradiction to the teach- 
ings of right reason. It cannot be that 
one truth should be opposed to another. 
Truth is certain, and whatever contradicts 
it is not truth. God is the author of truth, 
and the light both of reason and revelation. 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 99 

He alone proposes whatever is to be believ- 
ed, the things evident to the mind in the 
natural order, and the facts which come to 
our knowledge through the extraordinary 
way of revelation. How can He contradict 
Himself? The great verities which may be 
known by the light of nature revealed reli- 
gion has placed in a clearer light, while the 
new truths which it has brought us, being 
beyond us, are not subject to our reasoning 
powers. The enunciation of mysteries is 
no contradiction. There are mysteries in 
nature, in the laws of our own being, in the 
conditions of animal and vegetable life. Be- 
cause we see not how the plant germinates 
from the seed, nor how food supports bodily 
life, we doubt not the fact. We make faith- 
ful use of our spring-time, and neglect not 
the craving of our appetites. Much more 
reasonably do we expect mysteries in the 



ioo Relations of Reason and Faith. 

nature of the infinite, and in our relations 
to Him who is far above us. As has been 
often said, if we could comprehend God, He 
would cease to be God. While, then, the 
inquirer is asked to weigh carefully the 
proofs of revelation, the motives of credi- 
bility, and even the claims of the authority 
which proposes to teach us, it would be con- 
trary to all right reason to take up the dog- 
mas of Christianity and bring them to the 
tribunal of private judgment. For such a 
course would be to suppose that the verities 
of religion are in their nature and relations 
within the capacity of unaided reason, and, 
if this were the case, a revelation would be 
useless and futile. Secondly, it would make 
God contradict Himself and propose to us 
divine mysteries in an extraordinary man- 
ner, when, after all, they are either by the 
supposition nothing more than truths of 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 101 

nature, or are untrue and repugnant in them- 
selves. 

3. While, therefore, the true mind can 
find no difficulty in accepting a revelation 
properly authenticated, it is evident, from 
facts which need no proof, that religion is the 
fosterer of science and art, and the handmaid 
of all true human progress. Why should 
not the light which comes from God, and 
illuminates our pathway to the grave, and 
even through the valley of death, to the end 
of our being, lift up our souls to the high 
sense of their destiny ? How can the Word 
of God be idle in our minds ? Is it not a 
quickening power, pervading every part of 
our spiritual nature ? In the bright sunlight 
more perfectly come forth the outlines of 
land and sea. In the clearer knowledge of 
revelation more manifestly appear the truths 
of natural science. And while the intellect 



102 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

is raised to the view of the great First Cause, 
its faculties are enlarged, and its capacities 
seem to grow by the truth on which they 
feed. And the history of man is a suffi- 
cient reply to all who deny our proposition. 
Where have we found the greatest advance 
in art and science, except in the guidance 
of revealed knowledge ? Where the mighti- 
est efforts of human learning but under the 
protection of Christianity? Religion has 
been the teacher of mankind, even in the 
things that pertain to our temporal welfare, 
the mother of true civilization, the teacher 
of nobility in science, of beauty in art. So 
connected now with the triumphs of human 
learning is the Christian religion that every 
scholar, even the sceptical philosopher, lives 
in her light, and is not wholly in darkness 
by reason of her gracious beams. 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 103 
IV. 

The conclusions of our lecture will become 
more evident if we examine, for a moment, 
the sphere of reason under the influence of 
revealed religion. Vain and absurd is the 
theory which would lay aside the reason 
when once we enter under the dominion of 
faith, or make the authority of revelation 
take the place of our natural powers. Such 
a substitution would be an impossibility in 
fact, and would destroy that reasonable ser- 
vice which God asks of the intelligent agent. 
Here, then, we say that it is the office of 
reason to know and examine the foundations 
of faith, to accept the truths proposed, and 
even to defend them against the unbeliever 
as the great treasure of the mind, and the 
protection against the misery of doubt and 
scepticism. 



104 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

i. As truths supernatural are proposed on 
the authority of God, it is the office of reason 
to examine well the motives of credibility, 
and to know with surety that it is the voice 
of God which speaks, and no counterfeit of 
divine testimony. All these foundations of 
faith are as much the object of careful re- 
search to the believer as to the inquirer who 
seeks, for the first time, the evidences of reli- 
gion. They are, as it were, the solid col- 
umns on which rests the divine fabric of re- 
velation, and the heart, enlightened by the 
strong assurance of faith, is able to know 
how firmly built is the house of God, how 
it rests upon the undeniable principles of our 
nature. For its own greater knowledge of 
the harmony of the divine works, for the 
conviction of the doubting, for the conversion 
of the unbeliever, the reason loves to show 
how unanswerable are the proofs of Chris- 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 105 

tianity. God demands nothing unreasonable 
of an intelligent agent. He does not treat us 
as if we were machines operating by blind ' 
force, but to the eye that was made for such 
a bright vision He discloses the perfections 
of His ways, parting the clouds that veil His 
throne, and showing to the admiring soul 
something of His glory. " The heavens show 
forth the glory of God, and the firmament 
declare th the work of His hands. Day to day 
uttereth speech, and night to night showeth 
knowledge."* If God has not given such 
proofs of His interposition, we cannot be 
asked to believe. Without motives sufficient 
to induce the unprejudiced reason to assent, 
we could not go into the earth "to preach 
the Gospel to every creature," to " make 
known the way of God upon earth, His sal- 



* Psalm xviii. 1-2. 



io6 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

vation in all nations." We, therefore, shrink 
not from the lists of fair and logical discus- 
sion ; we are prepared to meet the objector 
on the principles of reason, and to convict 
him of the claims of religion, if he will be 
just and sincere. We take up what nature 
teaches, and, on the common ground, we 
are ready to defend the truths supernaturally 
revealed. We ask no man to accept the 
Catholic creed unless we can show him 
proofs greater and stronger than he would 
demand for immediate conviction in any affair 
of human life. Here the great learning of 
the doctors of the Church has made itself 
manifest, and all the sciences and every 
power of art have been made to enlighten 
the way of divine mercy upon earth. All 
that is true, beautiful, or good is from God, 
and all returns in praise to the Fountain of 
Light, whose honor is the highest joy of the 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 107 

universe. " O Lord, our Lord, how admir- 
able is Thy name in the whole earth. For 
Thy magnificence is elevated above the 
heavens." * 

2. The intellect of man is the subject to 
which the truths of revelation are proposed. 
As the beauties of nature are exposed to the 
eye, that man, seeing them, may adore the 
Maker of all, so the intelligent reason was 
framed for the knowledge of truth, which is 
its rightful food. Fortified by proofs unan- 
swerable of the divine interposition, and as- 
sisted by grace which elevates the act of as- 
sent to the voice of authority, it receives each 
and all of the objects of faith, understands 
what is revealed, and is able to explain the 
dependence of one verity upon another in 
the admirable harmony which distinguishes 



* Psalm viii. 1-2. 



108 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

all the divine operations. It is able to show 
how each part of the fabric strengthens and 
sustains the whole, how wonderfully revealed 
religion replies to the wants of our being, 
and how, with more than maternal tender- 
ness, the Almighty Hand has supplied the 
earnest desires of our souls. And though it 
cannot tear away the mystery which the be- 
ing and plans of the Infinite must necessarily 
wear to the created intellect, yet day after 
day develops new beauty, and the sun of 
truth upon which we gaze grows brighter 
unto the upright eye. 

3. Reason has yet a further privilege and 
a nobler duty. It can enter into the arena of 
controversy, and return with the laurels of 
victory. It can force the unbeliever to admit 
the claims of religion, or drive him from the 
ground of natural light to the darkness of 
universal doubt and the dishonesty of scepti- 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 109 

cism. It can take up the claims of that au- 
thority by which God upholds His revelation, 
and demonstrate the insincerity and blindness 
of those who refuse to acknowledge them. 
Man can refuse assent to the conclusions of 
his reason, but he has no right to do so. 
The objector moves the point of his attack, 
and ever changes his ground. Now he aims 
at the authority on which the dogmas of faith 
are taught, and again at the dogmas them- 
selves. Reason rightly guided is ever ready 
for the conflict, and retorts the arguments of 
the adversary, and is able to overcome him 
by his own weapons. The great mysteries 
of religion, though beyond the ken of our 
unaided powers, contradict no law of nature, 
and only establish the attributes of God. 
Moreover, with the force of testimony array- 
ed in favor of revelation, the authority of 
reason itself is at stake ; and he who will not 



no Relations of Reason and Faith. 

believe the word of his Maker, properly at- 
tested, how can he still believe in his own 
understanding ? The truths of the natural 
order come to us with sufficient evidence, 
but in the facts of the supernatural order we 
have even stronger evidence, and more un- 
mistakable proof. How shall he who rejects 
the greater accept the lesser testimony ? 
History comes again to our aid, and gives 
her solemn warning. They who have denied 
the voice of God in revelation have consist- 
ently learned to reject the voice of God in 
nature. While religion ever has defended 
the tenets of a pure philosophy, the disbe- 
lievers in the supernatural have cast off the 
restraints of reason, and in doubt and dispu- 
tation have forsaken the first principles of 
truth. The supreme First Cause has been 
degraded from His throne and man made 
His equal, and the dark problems of sin, 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 1 1 1 

sorrow, and death remain unsolved to taunt 
the misery of the sceptic or testify against 
the sincerity of his professions. He who has 
no reason for believing in any thing believes 
in nothing, can have no confidence in him- 
self, confesses that both his senses and his 
reason are deceivers. Happier, indeed, is 
the animal life, with its present joys and brief 
sorrows, where there is no prospect of a 
future. 

v. 

As man, under the light of mere nature, is 
able to pervert his powers, and prostitute his 
understanding to the denial of God, and of 
the distinction between right and wrong ; so, 
under the beams of a revelation whose light 
has pervaded the world, he can likewise turn 
from the clearer voice of truth, and use his 
faculties to subvert the plans of divine mercy. 



112 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

St. Paul has told us that they who hold the 
truth of God in insincerity and ungodliness 
are inexcusable, " because, when they knew 
God, they have not glorified him as God, or 
given thanks, but became vain in their 
thoughts, and their foolish heart was dark- 
ened. For professing themselves to be wise 
they became fools, and they changed the 
image of the incorruptible God into the 
likeness of the image of a corruptible man, 
and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and 
of creeping things. Wherefore, God gave 
them up unto the desires of their heart, unto 
uncleanness, who changed the truth of God 
into a lie, and worshipped and served the 
creature rather than the Creator, who is 
blessed forever." * Much more inexcusable 
are they who, admitting the presence of a 
supernatural authority, are disobedient to its 

* E. Romans i. 21-5. 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 1 1 3 

voice, and, perverting reason to a use to which 
it is not entitled, destroy logically the foun- 
dations of both natural and revealed religion. 
Such are the disciples of private judgment 
in our own day, who, professing to bring all 
dogmas within the scope of their own powers, 
are recreant to the first principles of reason. 
We have seen, in our brief summary, not 
only what man can do under the light of 
nature, but what he is bound to do. God is 
confessedly greater than His creatures ; He 
knoweth all things, and is able to communi- 
cate of His knowledge to His intelligent 
creation. Reason judges, as it must, of the 
proofs by which it is established that God is 
speaking. When those proofs are satisfac- 
tory, man has no alternative but to hear and 
obey. He cannot logically question the au- 
thority which is so well authenticated, and 
he must, if he will be a rational being, give 



114 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

his assent to the truths proposed on such au 
thority. The adherents to the theory of 
private judgment disregard the force of testi- 
mony, and submit to the individual mind 
the question as to every dogma of revelation. 
They ask not, Has God spoken, and are such 
His words ? Is the authority on which such 
truths rest a reliable one ? Such inquiries 
are justly within the province of reason. But 
they ask, Is the doctrine taught consonant 
with the judgment of each individual ? 
Each one becomes the arbiter in matters di- 
vine. Sinai, with its fire and cloud, has no 
lessons. The cross and open sepulchre of 
Christ teach nothing. God's word is to be 
submitted to the individual reason, there to 
be weighed in the puny balances of man's 
understanding. One finds it reasonable to 
believe that there is a life beyond the grave, 
and that the body which is resolved to dust 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 115 

shall one day rise again. Another finds such 
a notion to be contrary to the transforma- 
tions of matter which daily take place, and so 
laughs to scorn the doctrine of a resurrec- 
tion. In the scheme of such philosophers, 
it is nothing that our Lord Jesus Christ 
claimed to be the Son of God, and worked 
mighty miracles to prove His claims. His 
words are disbelieved, or taken to be explain- 
ed away as the opinion of mere man. " Won- 
der not, for the hour cometh when all that 
are in the graves shall hear the voice of the 
Son of God. And they that have done good 
things shall come forth unto the resurrection 
of life ; but they that have done evil, unto the 
resurrection of judgment."* By this pro- 
cess, which is applied to every revealed doc- 
trine, faith is utterly destroyed. Man no 
longer believes on the authority of God, and 

* St. John v. 25-9. 



Ii6 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

if he retain any truth in the supernatural 
order, it is ostensibly on the ground of its 
reasonableness to the individual, and there- 
fore is only a matter of opinion. This theory 
of private judgment is nothing more than 
practical scepticism. It destroys the prin- 
ciples of credibility. It subjects the truths 
of the Divine Being to the limits of man's 
understanding, and ends by the logical con- 
clusion of extinguishing both the light of 
revelation and of nature. 

i. The motives of credibility depend upon 
principles which are evident to reason. A 
thing cannot be and not be at the same mo- 
ment. The Creator is of a higher order 
than the creature. Miracles transcending 
our nature prove the presence of the power 
which made nature. The testimony of the 
senses is to be relied upon, if not in every 
individual case, certainly in the case of many 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 1 1 7 

and competent witnesses. He who subjects all 
the truths of religion to his own private judg- 
ment denies in effect all these principles, and 
by his creed God Himself can bring no evi- 
dence to which he will yield. A prophet 
may rightly foretell future events, or in his 
presence heal the sick, or raise the dead to 
life, and yet, in spite of all, he will not accept 
such testimony. The word must be weigh- 
ed, not in the light of its intelligibility, but 
of its intrinsic credibility. To such a theo- 
rist there can be no authority, since God 
Himself is none. There are no marks to 
attest the foot-prints of Almighty power, no 
proof which can authenticate the divine word. 

2. Nothing is more self-evident than that 
the infinite cannot be comprehended by the 
finite. Is it not, then, degrading to the level 
of the creature the majesty of heaven to take 
the truths proposed by a well-attested reve- 



1 1 8 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

lation, and submit them to the examination 
of the individual judgment? Can I be a 
judge where I know nothing ? Can the 
blind be the judges of the varied hue of 
flowers, or the deaf of the concordance of 
sweet sounds ? Can my reason furnish me 
any data by which I can weigh the mystery 
of the incarnation of the Son of God ? I 
know something of human nature, though by 
no means every thing ; but what do I know of 
the laws of the Divine Being ? I see before 
me only a man like myself, with beauty, per- 
haps, far surpassing that of the sons of men ; 
still, I see only a creature. He goes about 
the earth like a beggar, and at last hangs 
upon a cross between two thieves. Yet am 
I to be governed by my mortal eyes and my 
frail reason, and when He declares Himself 
to be God, the consubstantial Word of the 
Father, by whom all things were made, and 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 119 

when I see Him raise the dead in proof of 
His divinity, am I to say I will not believe ? 
Am I to reason that it is intrinsically impos- 
sible that God should become man, or that 
the divine and human natures should be 
united in one person, when, to say the 
least, I argue blindly, without a full know- 
ledge of the terms I imply? I am a judge 
of the extrinsic credibility, that is, of the 
proofs which induce me to believe ; but how 
can I be a judge of the intrinsic credibility 
of a doctrine whose proportions reach beyond 
the bounds of my vision ? Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom I see only as a man, must give me the 
evidence that he is more than man. Of this 
I am the judge. I behold it myself, or I re- 
ceive it on the testimony of others who are 
too numerous and too competent to be de- 
ceived. Here my reason is satisfied, and 
leads my heart to cry out, " Lord, I believe." 



120 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

3. Finally, if I am to sift every dogma 
proposed to my acceptance on a superna- 
tural authority, and try the mysteries of re- 
ligion by pure reason, then for me there 
is and can be no revelation. God cannot 
bring down the facts of His being to my 
level, and He can give me no proofs which 
are strong enough to convince me. Let 
us take the facts of Christianity as an evi- 
dence, and, whatever any one may be dis- 
posed to admit, these facts are too well 
known to be denied. " Their words have 
gone unto the ends of the earth, and their 
sound into all the earth." 

Christianity has always proposed certain 
dogmas on a divine authority. They have 
been shown to contradict neither history 
nor philosophy. When the blow was suc- 
cessfully struck at the principle of authority, 
and the several parts of the Christian creed 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 121 

were brought to the individual reason, that 
their intrinsic credibility might be deter- 
mined, then fell the fabric of faith, and 
tower after tower of the sacred edifice crum- 
bled to the dust. With such reformers 
Christ Himself soon ceased to be divine, 
and, therefore, no teacher, no law-giver. 
First, the Bible was the religion of Protest- 
ants ; then, as the world understood that a 
book subjected to individual interpretation 
could be no rule of faith, the sacred Scrip- 
ture have ceased to hold authority ; for they, 
too, are subject to the same private judg- 
ment, and bear to many minds no suffi- 
cient evidence of inspiration. So, in our 
enlightened day, the reformers, returning 
from the demolition of revealed religion, 
have not even left untouched the temple 
of reason itself. In the degradation of the 
Supreme Being, in the obstinate rejection 



122 Relations of Reason and Faith. 

of testimony, they have subverted the laws 
of evidence, and have brought back the 
darkness of scepticism, to which drear and 
irrational philosophy many burdened con- 
sciences have become willing converts. Ci- 
cero and Plato would put to shame many of 
the bright intellects of our day. 

How natural is the transition ! When 
I have sufficient proofs of a divine interposi- 
tion, I will not believe. I shut my eyes to 
the voice of miracles, to the language of 
prophecy, to the great facts which stand 
out on the page of history, to the inward 
cravings of my nature. Am I not travel- 
ling in the way which leads to atheism, 
where I will confess no truth, where I may 
say that man liveth in deceit, the victim 
of a skilful lie, the central figure of a pan- 
orama of falsehood ? Is it my great Crea- 
tor, who cannot communicate with me, to 



Relations of Reason and Faith. 123 

whom I consider myself an equal ? Where, 
when the force of human testimony is re- 
jected, are my sources of knowledge ? Liv- 
ing to myself, and dying to myself, would 
I not like to obliterate from my conscience 
all sense of right and wrong, all fear of ac- 
countability to an omniscient judge ? Alas ! 
I strive in vain. Reason awakes me in my 
dream ; I beat against the bars of my cage, 
but they yield not, and I am a prisoner 
still. Captive shall I be till I am true to 
the instincts of my nature, willing to be- 
lieve in God, anxious to hear His voice, 
and ready at once to obey it. Then shall 
my fetters be broken, then shall I fear no 
evil, then shall the light of the Lord shine 
upon me, then shall the field of knowledge 
open its boundless treasures to my under- 
standing. " In Thy light shall I see light." 




Lecture III. 

J^ONDITIONS OF jR_EVELATION. 

T has been impossible to avoid some 
repetitions in the definitions we 
have made of reason and faith, 
and in the explanation of their relations. 
We have also been obliged to anticipate 
the subject of this lecture, and to speak of 
the consequences of a revelation before treat- 
ing scientifically of its nature and evidence. 
All that has been said is, however, of the 
highest importance in our argument, and 
must be kept in mind during the course 
of this evening's lecture. 

Our present purpose is to define what is 




Conditions of Revelation. 125 

meant by a revelation ; to show that such an 
interposition on the part of God is possible, 
and even necessary for the good of our race ; 
to examine the proof by which such a re- 
velation must be authenticated ; and, lastly, 
to state certain conditions which are essen- 
tial to the preservation of truths revealed. 

1. 

By revelation we understand an immedi- 
ate manifestation of divine power by which 
certain truths exceeding the capacity of our 
natural faculties are made known to man. 
All the parts of this definition are impor- 
tant. God alone can teach us in regard to 
things above nature, and, if He pleases to 
make any such manifestation, it must be 
attended by signs of divine power. The 
truths revealed are beyond the scope of our 



126 Conditions of Revelation. 

reason, since otherwise there would be no 
need of any extraordinary method of instruc- 
tion. It is also quite evident that the know- 
ledge thus imparted is of the greatest value 
to our whole race. It is, indeed, possible 
for God to make known to an individual 
facts and circumstances which concern him 
specially. Yet general truths, which affect 
the entire race, are of the same importance 
to all mankind. Every member of the hu- 
man family has the same interest in these 
truths, for they are the lights which guide 
men to their ultimate end. Any revelation, 
therefore, of supernatural truths must be for 
the benefit of the whole world. 

In regard to the mode in which such a 
divine manifestation shall take place, we 
cannot fix any bounds to the liberty or power 
of God. Undoubtedly, as He is addressing 
men, He will follow the ordinary laws of in- 



Conditions of Revelation. 127 

telligence. It is not likely that He will ad- 
dress every individual mind and pour upon it 
an extraordinary illumination. Such a course 
would not be in accordance with the social 
order which His hand has established, and 
by which we are aggregated together as the 
members of one family, nation, or race. It 
would also take away to a great extent the 
use of our liberty in the trial of faith, since, 
seeing by supernatural light acting directly 
upon the intellect, we would not need to 
examine the extrinsic motives of credibility, 
and the logical order of knowledge would 
be subverted. We do not say that God 
could not do this, and at the same time 
leave intact all the attributes of our na- 
ture ; but we do say that such a course 
on His part is neither probable nor neces- 
sary. Judging by the ordinary facts of ex- 
perience, we should expect that He would 



128 Conditions of Revelation. 

employ some instrumentality through which 
His voice should be heard, and that He 
would first attest this instrumentality by 
signs of divine intervention, and, secondly, 
carefully guard it from error in the discharge 
of its office. He could not be expected 
always to prevent misconception on the part 
of the hearer or learner, but He would be 
bound to keep substantial error from the 
mouth of the teacher. Otherwise there 
would be no enunciation of truth, and the 
consequences of such a futile attempt at 
enlightening man would be worse than no 
revelation at all. 

Again, the truths manifested, to be the 
objects of faith, should be clearly stated, with- 
out any hesitation or uncertainty. Unless 
they were clearly stated, the mind could not 
receive them, for they would not be intelli- 
gible ; and if there were the slightest uncer- 



Conditions of Revelation. 



129 



tainty, there would be a contradiction impos- 
sible to the reason. There can be no un- 
certainty about God's knowledge, and there 
can be no medium between certainty and 
uncertainty. The truth in question would 
either be revealed clearly or not at all. God 
could not make known certain facts concern- 
ing His being and His relations to us, and 
then leave us free to believe them or not. For 
the ground of belief is the same in all cases — 
the veracity of God ; and he who receives one 
truth on such a motive must likewise receive 
all which are proposed in the same manner. 
Reason rejects contradictions, though passion 
and prejudice may entertain them. By the 
condition of a clear statement of the matter 
revealed, no one will misunderstand us as 
excluding the proposition of mysteries, which 
are a necessity in the communications be- 
tween the finite and the infinite mind. We 



130 



Conditions of Revelation. 



only repeat what has been before stated, that, 
even in the revelation of things above our 
capacity to fathom, the mystery offered to 
faith must be clearly stated and in unequi- 
vocal terms. 

ii. 

The possibility of such a revelation is 
easily established. It cannot be denied with- 
out denying the omnipotence of God or the 
intelligence of man. Surely the power of 
God cannot be limited. He can manifest 
truth to His creatures if He is pleased so to do. 

We, finite as we are, can teach others and 
impart to them of our knowledge. Cannot 
the infinite mind do the same ? Is He less 
perfect than His creatures ? Secondly, if man 
have the power of knowing, which no one 
can logically deny without affirming it, then 
there is no difficulty on his part. He can 



Conditions of Revelation. 131 

receive truth, know it as far as it is intelli- 
gible, and turn it to good account. Lastly, 
there can be found no difficulty on the part 
of the truth revealed, for this is the genuine 
object of knowledge. Our finite powers may 
not enable us to comprehend all the verities 
God may propose to us, but they are all in- 
telligible, and, in this respect, open to our 
perceptions. Mysteries announce to us al- 
ways a clear and intelligible truth which is 
the object of faith. The intimate relations, 
the full proportions of truths mysterious are 
hidden from us, and not that sense which is 
obvious, and which the mind readily seizes. 
We have already explained this distinction. 
We define man to be an animal formed of a 
body and a rational soul. Who understands 
this relation of spirit and matter, or can com- 
prehend whence arises this union of body 
and soul? Yet who does not understand 



132 Conditions of Revelation. 

what man is ? Who is incapable of appre- 
ciating the definition ? The same rule ap- 
plies to all the mysteries of religion. They 
are not occult and manifest under the same 
respect, but perfectly clear in statement, and 
only occult from the very nature of the truths 
themselves as proposed to a finite intelli- 
gence. Neither is there any repugnance to 
reason in the truths proposed by religion, 
and, if it be admitted that they are not in 
all respects conformed to reason, what else 
could be expected of things which surpass 
the natural order, and relate to matters super- 
human or divine ? No one can, therefore, 
deny the possibility of a revelation without, 
at the same time, assailing the plainest testi- 
mony of nature in regard to God and man. 



Conditions of Revelation. 



133 



III. 

But we are able to advance beyond this 
position, and to show that the needs of our 
race called loudly for the divine intervention, 
and rendered the mercy of a revelation not 
only probable, but even morally necessary. 
We argue this from the condition of man 
under the light of nature and the infinite 
goodness of our Creator. Here, calling to 
mind what has been said, we repeat the lan- 
guage of St. Paul, and find the nations inex- 
cusable who, when they might have known 
the eternal power and divinity of God from 
the creation, darkened their foolish hearts, 
and from gross idolatry fell into shameful 
vice. Even the primeval traditions were for- 
gotten, or corrupted by the notions of a false 
religion. All the best instincts of nature 
were transgressed, and the plain teachings of 



134 



Conditions of Revelation. 



reason contradicted. And the philosophers, 
who were too wise to accept the low super- 
stitions of the common people, were unable 
to form a fixed belief, while, by their constant 
disputations and discordant doctrines, they 
lost the confidence of the multitude. Such 
was the history of nations unenlightened by 
the beams of a special revelation. Idolatry 
became the fruitful parent of crimes against 
the natural law, and the first principles of 
ethics were lost sight of in the forgetfulness 
of duty toward God and toward man. Even 
natural affection ceased to enforce its rights, 
and injustice, impurity, and murder were 
sanctioned by common superstition. There 
is no necessity of adducing, at any length, 
the records of heathen tribes, nor of referring 
to the well-known facts of nations now sunk 
in the darkness of paganism. 

From this great need of man we perceive 



Conditions of Revelation. 



135 



that he will not obtain his end without some 
new light from his Maker. We do not argue 
that he cannot rise above the vices and er- 
rors which surround him, still less that God is 
absolutely bound to interpose. But we rea- 
son that, on the part of the fallen creature 
wandering so far from the path that leads to 
beatitude, there is a fearful need that some 
almighty arm should come to his rescue. 
We see that he will not rise unless the di- 
vine hand be put forth to raise him up, and 
assist the enfeebled powers of nature ; and 
from the infinite mercy of our Creator, and 
His love for the works of His hand, we argue 
that He will come to man's necessity, and 
not allow him to wander for ever from the 
pasture of the Great Shepherd, nor go down 
in utter darkness to the shadows of death. 
We could not tell how, nor when, nor where 
He would interpose ; but the race of Adam 



136 Conditions of Revelation. 

would wait for the Lord and cry mightily unto 
its Maker, " Send help from Thy holy place 
and light from Sion." " They shall look to 
the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, 
weakness and distress, and a mist following 
them, and they cannot fly away from their 
distress. . . . The people that walked 
in darkness have seen a great light ; to them 
that dwelt in the region of the shadow of 
death, light has risen."* 



IV. 

Upon the supposition, however, that God 
proposes to make a revelation to man, it is 
certain that He will attest His intervention 
by plain and unanswerable proofs. These 
we have a right to demand from Him, for we 
are not called upon to believe in any thing 



* Isaiah viii. 22 ; ix. 2. 



Conditions of Revelation. 137 

supernatural without sufficient evidence ; and 
if such proofs were not given, there would 
be no sure way to fortify ourselves against 
the possibility of deceit. Almighty God is 
able to give such proofs, and in justice to 
His creatures He is bound so to do if He 
proposes to interpose for their good. These 
proofs must, then, be of a nature to carry 
conviction to every sincere and candid mind. 
There can be no evidence to which men 
will be forced to yield if they deliberately 
refuse to see the light or to use their reason. 
Yet here the fault is on the part of the 
frailty and perverseness of man, and not on 
the part of God. Evidence internal address- 
ed to individual minds would not be suffi- 
cient to establish a revelation. There must 
be plain external proof that God is speaking to 
us mediately or immediately, and that we are 
exposed to no deception of man. 



138 Conditions of Revelation. 

Such proofs before a revelation are miracles 
and prophecy, while after its establishment 
the manner of its preservation and the influ- 
ence of its doctrine may come before us to 
add strength to the evidence already given. 
Each one of these sources of testimony de- 
mands a separate consideration. 

1. Miracles, being works above and some- 
times contrary to the order of created nature, 
furnish the most evident proof. Thus to a 
genuine miracle is required some sensible 
effect, contrary to the accustomed order of 
providence, which can therefore be produced 
by God alone, who is the author of nature. 
The sensible effect is manifest to the eyes 
of the beholders, who have every oppor- 
tunity to judge of what they see and to 
guard against deception. And the nature 
of the work wrought before competent 
witnesses is so plainly contrary to the ac- 



Conditions of Revelation. 139 

customed order of things that the divine 
power is evidently in exercise. There are 
things striking and wonderful which can be 
performed by angelic or diabolical agency, 
but a genuine miracle transcends this, and 
requires the Almighty hand. For example, 
the sudden and complete cure of the sick, 
the raising of the dead to life, are operations 
which no one but God can work, since they 
imply the power of life and death. And in 
cases where our own eyes do not behold such 
miracles, we must have the testimony of 
numerous and competent eye-witnesses, whose 
word is as good as the evidence of our own 
senses. We cannot distrust the senses of 
others if we rely upon our own ; and where 
there are witnesses so numerous that col- 
lusion is impossible, we are forced to yield 
assent or reject the first principles of reason. 
In the actual affairs of human life the greater 



140 Conditions of Revelation. 

part of our knowledge is derived from such 
testimony, and he who would reject it would 
be esteemed a fool by all mankind. 

The possibility of such miracles is quite 
clear, since there is no intrinsic contradiction 
involved in them, and therefore God can, if 
He will, produce them, and, where there is a 
sufficient reason, will do so. 

The physical laws of nature depend upon 
the free will of God, and are not like the 
moral laws, which have for their object good 
and evil which change not. Neither are 
these physical laws subverted, but only sus- 
pended or deviated from in particular cases, 
where there is great good to be accomplish- 
ed, such as will glorify the Author of Mercy 
and conduce to the highest benefit of His 
creatures. Where, then, can any impossibi- 
lity of miracles be deduced ? Not from the 
part of God, who must of necessity be omni- 



Conditions of Revelation. 141 

potent ; and certainly not on the part of the 
sensible effect, which involves no contradic- 
tion nor repugnance in reason. 

Here, then, we have the clearest evidence 
of divine intervention ; and if such miracles 
are wrought to attest a supernatural revela- 
tion, we have an invincible motive of faith. 
No one but God can be the author of such 
miracles, and He cannot lend His power to 
deceive us, nor allow us to be deceived by any 
agency proceeding from Him. Whenever, 
then, we are sure of a true miracle, we are 
also certain of his divine mission by whom 
the miracle is wrought. There can be no 
escape from this conclusion. Convinced of 
the truth, we must yield obedience to the 
voice of reason and conscience. There have 
been and there may still be false miracles 
which have every appearance, at first sight, 
of true supernatural works. But such facts 



142 Conditions of Revelation. 

are rare, and on examination easily afford evi- 
dence of their falsity. They only strength- 
en our argument, because they make more 
evident the character of true and divine mira- 
cles. Now, there can be no question that, 
if we see a miracle with our own eyes, we 
must believe it. He who would deny the evi- 
dence of his own senses under all the favorable 
circumstances which ordinarily produce con- 
viction could not be reasoned with at all. 
But it could not be required of God, if He 
were to make a revelation, that He should 
work miracles before every eye, and make 
every individual man the witness of such 
wonders. All that could be expected would 
be that the first teachers of the truths reveal- 
ed should be attested by the signs of divine 
power in the face of competent testimony. 
Such testimony would be that of persons in- 
telligent enough to judge of the effect pro- 



Conditions of Revelation. 143 

duced before their eyes, and indisposed to be 
deceived or to deceive others. On the in- 
troduction of a new religion such witnesses 
could easily be found, when the minds of 
men would necessarily be disposed to ex- 
amine well every strange truth proposed, and 
on the alert against deception. The testi- 
mony of such witnesses would attest once 
and for ever the divinity of a revelation. For 
God cannot lie, and therefore can never pro- 
pose at one time truths which could be con- 
tradicted afterward by any teacher sent from 
Him. A revelation once proved remains for 
ever, so far as the truths revealed are con- 
cerned. They stand fast and as immovable 
as God Himself. 

In these few and simple words we think 
we have anticipated the objections which the 
adversaries of faith are apt to offer. No ob- 
jection can be successfully urged while every 



144 Conditions of Revelation. 

one implies either a contradiction in terms 
or a denial of the attributes of God. It has 
been said, however, that no sufficient evi- 
dence of a miracle can ever be given, because 
the argument in favor of the inflexibility of 
the laws of nature is greater than any testi- 
mony which can possibly be given of their 
suspension. Where is the argument which 
proves that the laws of nature cannot be 
suspended? We have never heard such an 
argument sustained. If the Almighty cannot 
deviate in particular cases from laws estab- 
lished by His own free will, He ceases to be 
almighty. And as for the evidence required, 
it simply comes to this : that a certain amount 
of evidence produces conviction on every 
reasonable mind, and that there is no escape 
but in scepticism, which throws doubt upon 
every kind of testimony. It is all very well 
to resort to this scepticism as a captious ob- 



Conditions of Revelation. 145 

jection to a revealed truth, but it violates 
reason and every just notion of God or man. 
The Divine Wisdom did not so make us that 
we should distrust the senses He gave us 
and the intelligence by which we differ from 
the brute creation. I am as capable of judg- 
ing of a miracle as of any other sensible 
operation. I can judge of death, and, there- 
fore, of a resurrection from the dead. Sick- 
ness of every class, in its external manifesta- 
tions, is within my knowledge, and, therefore, 
an instantaneous recovery from disease to 
health is a matter of which my senses can 
take full cognizance. To tell me that what I 
see is a deception, is to shake my faith in all 
that I can see and know. If God can de- 
ceive me at one time, He is likely to do so 
at another, and, therefore, becomes unworthy 
of my confidence. And when I lose my trust 
in the veracity and goodness of God, I am 



146 Conditions of Revelation. 

utterly without faith. Against such practical 
atheism reason revolts in its strongest accents, 
and demonstrates how her would-be votaries 
have dethroned their goddess, and trailed her 
glories in the dust. 

r>. Another proof of the authenticity of a 
revelation may be found in prophecy, or the 
distinct foretelling of future events which 
can be known to creatures by no natural 
means. It is self-evident that all future 
events are known to God, to whom there are 
no gradations of time, no past nor future; 
and hence it is in His power to make known 
to the creature whatever He shall choose. 
No argument is here requisite, and hence the 
conclusion follows that he who is able clearly 
to predict future events is sustained by 
divine power, and is a messenger from God 
in the truths which he teaches. The enun- 
ciations of the prophet, and the fact of their 



Conditions of Revelation. 147 

literal fulfilment, are closely to be examined, 
and every point is rigidly to be scrutinized. 
No indistinct utterances, no oracular sayings, 
capable of diverse interpretations, are pro- 
phecies. Thus, false prophets are to be de- 
tected from the nature of their predictions 
and the ambiguous words in which they are 
conceived. When, in the history of the 
Hebrews, Moses stood before the king of 
Egypt, and day after day foretold the 
plagues and judgments about to come upon 
him and his nation, there was the plainest 
evidence of divine interposition. Moses 
could have not wrought any of the plagues 
of which he spoke, since they implied divine 
power; neither could he have known of them, 
except by the inspiration of God. Again, 
when our Lord Jesus Christ painted the fear- 
ful scenes which were to occur after His 
death in the destruction of Jerusalem, the 



148 Conditions of Revelation. 

exact fulfilment of all His prophecy was an 
unanswerable proof of the divinity which He 
claimed. And though we know not the ex- 
tent of angelical or diabolical knowledge, 
we are quite certain that both angels and 
devils are subject to Almighty power, and 
will never be allowed to deceive us in the 
truth or falsehood of a revelation. A teacher 
whom God sends to be the medium by which 
He communicates truths supernatural to 
mankind must show the credentials of his 
mission. If he can work miracles, or rightly 
foretell future events, then there is no room 
for doubting his authority. There have been 
many false prophets, who have spoken in 
vague and equivocal language ; but they are 
easily distinguished by the failure of their 
predictions, which were only attempts to im- 
pose upon the ignorant and credulous, and 
to make a gain of their superstitions. The 



Conditions of Revelation. 149 

prophets of the true God have announced 
certain and determined events, remote in 
place or time, with all their circumstances, 
even the most minute ; while the event has 
verified their words and redounded to the 
glory of Him who inspired them. 

3. A religion coming from God, and com- 
municated to man in a supernatural manner, 
will necessarily need for its preservation the 
divine care, and so the continuity of its life 
and the manner of its propagation will speak 
the nature of its origin. This is eminently 
true of a system of doctrines which combats 
the natural passions of men, and calls them 
from indulgence to self-denial and virtue. 
Every false religion has compromised with 
the animal demands of our nature, and to 
a greater or lesser degree has sanctioned 
vice. Teachers who inveigh against im- 
morality and openly rebuke sin excite at 



150 Conditions of Revelation. 

once the opposition of the world and 
the bitter enmity of the sensual. The 
life and triumphs of such a religion are 
proofs of more than human vitality, and are 
an evidence that the Almighty power which 
interposed by signs and wonders to authen- 
ticate its mission to man has never deserted 
its onward inarch in the regeneration of the 
world. This testimony becomes doubly 
strong when no human means are employed 
to sustain it, when its apostles are not war- 
riors enforcing with fire and steel the accept- 
ance of its doctrines, when no kingdom sends 
forth its armies in its behalf, when still more 
the powers of earth are arrayed against it, 
and the strong and mighty rise up on every 
side to destroy it and blot its name from his- 
tory. Where there are no material weapons ; 
where, on the contrary, there is a constant 
struggle with human strength, and still, in 



Conditions of Revelation. 151 

spite of all, there is a triumphant life and 
fertility which persecution does not quench, 
there is the presence of the power which 
rules in the armies of heaven, and does ac- 
cording to His will among the inhabitants of 
earth. 

No human pride can counterfeit the divine 
life, no earthly organization the vitality which 
defies decay. "Thy throne, O God, is for 
ever and ever. . . * . Thou in the begin- 
ning didst form the earth, and the works of 
Thy hands are the heavens. They shall . 
perish, but Thou shalt continue ; they all 
shall grow old like a garment, and as a ves- 
ture shalt Thou change them, and they shall 
be changed ; but Thou art the self-same, and 
Thy years shall not fail."* Time, as he passes 
in his work of destruction and brings to 
decay all human things, adds to the strength 

*E. Hebrews, i. 8-12. 



152 



Conditions of Revelation. 



of this testimony in favor of a religion which 
partakes of the unchangeableness of the 
Divine Being. 

4. Mankind have also a right to judge 
of the moral influence of the truths revealed, 
and in their enlightening and sanctifying in- 
fluence to receive a new evidence of their 
divinity. There are deep wants in our 
souls, and we must look to God alone to 
fill them. There is the high sense of right 
and wrong, the appreciation of truth and 
beauty, the insatiable desire to know, the 
longing to rise above passion and sense, 
and to see more perfectly the providence 
which encompasses us. Hence, we are the 
judges of the effects of a religion which 
thus we test, as the tree is known by its 
fruit. The Great Artificer knoweth well the 
work of His hands, and the light which 
comes from Him answers the end of our 



Conditions of Revelation. 



153 



being. Shadows flee away from the domain 
of the intellect and the heart, all things take 
their proper place, truth presents its attrac- 
tions without fear, and beauty high and holy 
captivates the affections without ensnaring 
the reason. Hence, passion no longer sways 
the understanding, and man rises from the 
level of the brute to the purity and nobility 
of his nature, which once came from God 
crowned with glory and honor. We have 
a right to demand that every teaching of 
God should lead to holiness, and produce 
its happy effects on the soul yielding to its 
influence. No immorality is from above. 
No creed which debases man or lends sanc- 
tion to vice bears the mark of a heavenly ori- 
gin. But where we are able to see mighty 
conquests over self, advance in real pro- 
gress, self-denial carried to a heroic degree, 
we behold the emancipation of man from 



154 Conditions of Revelation. 

the slavery of sin; we behold him ascend- 
ing toward the divine sanctity, whose only 
purpose in revelation must be such a re- 
generation and exaltation of our race. Let, 
then, the religion which professes to be 
from God be tried impartially by such a test. 
Let its influence upon the world, upon 
society, upon the individual man, be care- 
fully examined, and let the voice of history 
come to add its testimony to the many proofs 
of divine revelation. This is a test which 
the word of God itself suggests. " Beware 
of false prophets, who come to you in the 
clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are 
ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall 
know them. Do men gather grapes of 
thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so every 
good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and 
the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 



Conditions of Revelation. 1 5 5 

Wherefore by their fruits you shall know 
them."* 

v. 

Before closing this lecture, we have to 
speak briefly of the most important of all 
questions, and to bring yet more into light 
the manner in which a revelation shall be 
introduced into the world and maintained 
consistently with its necessary conditions. 
Here we shall endeavor to reason with the 
utmost candor, and in such a simple manner 
as to carry conviction to every mind. We 
take it for granted that, on the supposition 
of a revelation, the truths made known to 
mankind in so extraordinary a way are of 
the highest importance to our whole race. 
We require, then, that on the most indubi- 
table signs of divine intervention they be 

* St. Matthew vii. 15-20. 



156 Conditions of Revelation. 

taught us plainly, so that the sincere mind 
need not err, and that a method be devised 
for extending the knowledge of these truths 
and maintaining them intact, in order that 
the successive generations of men may em- 
brace them with the same assurance as that 
which crowned the confession of the first 
believers. 

In regard to the introduction of a revela- 
tion, we can see no method, except that 
which has in fact been adopted, of enlighten- 
ing the minds of one or more among men 
with the clear perception of the truths to be 
communicated. In this method are implied 
two things — the imparting knowledge to the 
individuals who are employed as the me- 
diums through whom God speaks, and, se- 
condly, the enabling them to express clearly 
the doctrines made known to their minds. 
They must have correct notions of the 



Conditions of Revelation. 157 

truths they declare by divine impulse, and 
be so guided in teaching them that there 
is no corruption of the sacred trust com- 
mitted to them. Supernatural light is not 
communicated to them for their own bene- 
fit, but for the whole race to which they are 
sent as messengers. As we have already 
seen, their mission requires authentication 
to themselves and to mankind. Hence, by 
well-substantiated miracles, or by prophecies, 
they must vindicate their authority as teach- 
ers from God. No one is required to be- 
lieve without sufficient reason, and no mere 
man has any right to dictate to another. 
When the first teachers of a revelation have 
thus, by signs and wonders which divine 
power alone can work, proved the supernat- 
ural character of their doctrines, there is 
evidence sufficient to convince all to whom 
their words may be addressed. 



158 Conditions of Revelation. 

But, inasmuch as the knowledge of truth 
is for the good of all men, how shall the 
revelation of God, successfully introduced 
into the world, be preserved, and be extend- 
ed throughout the earth, and safely deliver- 
ed to the various generations of mankind ? 
We can conceive of no other way than that 
of a succession of teachers who shall receive 
the sacred trust intact and be able to impart 
it to others. To preserve this continuity 
of life the divine power is certainly necessa- 
ry, but this is presupposed, and affords no 
difficulty to the reason. The Supreme Be- 
ing, who planned in mercy a revelation, is 
bound to preserve the work of His own 
hands. Neither is it required that miracles 
or prophecies shall accompany continually 
the line of teachers who derive their author- 
ity from the original messengers of God. 
It will be sufficient that these first founders 



Conditions of Revelation. 159 

of a religion shall provide for coming ages 
by a divine impulse, that they shall fortify 
their successors with the promise of super- 
natural guidance in the office they are called 
to discharge. That promise will rest on the 
veracity of God, pledged to them by the un- 
mistakable signs which authenticate their re- 
velation. Until this authority shall be with- 
drawn by the same mighty power, it will 
stand on the unchangeable nature of Him 
who is truth itself. Wonders may be 
wrought at will, but the first miracles stand 
as sure in their testimony as when they 
were seen by the multitudes that gazed in 
awe upon them, or listened in rapt admira- 
tion at the voice of the prophet. 

The proofs of which we have spoken as 
substantiating a revelation after its first es- 
tablishment will ever be present. The true 
religion will live in a superhuman manner, 



160 Conditions of Revelation. 

and in spite of opposition from all the might 
of this world. Time, as it crumbles the 
monuments of fame to dust, will leave it 
untouched. Age shall only strengthen its 
power, and from every conflict it shall come 
forth with the freshness of enduring youth. 
The line of its divinely-guided teachers shall 
never fail, though the enmity of its adver- 
saries be armed with fire and sword. One 
failure would be the destruction of all ; for the 
line once lost, could only be recovered by a 
new revelation. And men should be the 
impartial judges as to the influence of the 
doctrines so miraculously taught and wonder- 
fully preserved. They should tell us if high 
morality and the elevation of man to every 
noble virtue are the consequences of reli- 
gion, if society owes to it its progress in civi- 
lization and honor, if the departure from its 
principles leads to vice and the darkness of 



Conditions of Revelation. 161 

pagan degradation. On such points the de- 
cision of mankind could not long be in error. 
Here, then, we perceive a safe and reasonable 
way by which, in perfect consistency with 
every attribute of God or man, a revelation 
may be preserved in its purity and taught in 
its power. And we can perceive no other 
way. Traditions are likely to become cor- 
rupt unless they are guarded by divine care, 
and it is almost an axiom that the learner 
must be taught, and in a clear and infallible 
manner. Much has been said in late years 
in regard to infallibility, as if in it there were 
any difficulties for the reason. But every 
sincere person will see that, if there is to be 
such a thing as the teaching of supernatural 
truth, that teaching must be infallible, other- 
wise it is no truth, but falsehood. Between 
truth and error there is no medium. If a 
doctrine be not true, it is false. Partial truth, 



1 62 Conditions of Revelation. 

if we may even use the term, is the most de- 
ceptive and dangerous form of error. 

And as for the method of teaching by 
means of writing, it is impracticable and im- 
possible according to the ordinary modes of 
mental discipline. Let us suppose that the 
original founders of a religion wrote down in 
a book, or collection of books, the truths they 
were inspired to make known. The line of 
living teachers of which we have spoken would 
be required to prove the authenticity of their 
writings, and to apply them. Man without 
this assistance would be easily deceived, and 
could have no divine safeguard against error. 
And then, in the understanding of the writ- 
ten revelation, the individual mind, unaided 
by any external authority, would certainly fall 
into misapprehension and misinterpretation. 
No man could be sure of his creed, or pre- 
tend to impose obligations of belief upon 



Conditions of Revelation. 163 

another, and hence all faith would fail. God 
Himself could not teach men by means of a 
book unless He were in each individual case 
to supply infallibility of the understanding. 
For this the same evidence would be requir- 
ed as that which first authenticated a reli- 
gion. Moreover, very few of men could ever 
see the divine writings, or read them if they 
could see them, so that the largest part of 
the world would be at the mercy of the edu- 
cated minority. The scenes of Babel would 
return, and if ever there were one language, 
the tongues of men would speedily be con- 
fused. 

In the statements and arguments now ad- 
vanced, we believe that no one can accuse us 
of partiality. If the facts and miracles of 
religion have given us the light by which 
our path has been illumined, it is certainly 



164 Conditions of Revelation. 

no proof that we have not followed the 
honest dictates of reason. We could not 
argue as if we were living in the natural 
order, and as if the sun of God's mercy were 
not shining over our heads. But we have 
violated no principle of our nature when, on 
the great question of revelation, we have 
sought to bring into exercise the faculties 
by which it is given us to apprehend the 
author and end of our being. The simple 
argument we have made is wholly in accord- 
ance with our reason, and must be admitted, 
or all of truth must be lost in infidelity. And 
how does it add to our worship of the All- 
wise Creator that thus in living characters 
He has written His message to our souls, 
and, condescending to the work of our re- 
demption, has left in every path of His mercy 
the beams of His glory, the evidence of His 
greatness ! All His works praise Him, but, 



Conditions of Revelation. 165 

above all, the intellect of man, formed to 
know, admire, and embrace His perfections. 
" We shall say much, and yet shall want 
words : but the sum of our words is, He is 
all. What shall we be able to do to glorify 
Him ? for the Almighty Himself is above all 
His works. Who shall see Him and declare 
Him, and who shall magnify Him as He is 
from the beginning ? There are many things 
hidden from us that are greater than these ; 
for we have seen but few of His works. But 
the Lord hath made all things, and to the 
godly He hath given wisdom."* 



* Ecclesiasticus xliii. 29-37 




Lecture IV. 



JIeyelation and ^rotestantism. 

N our preceding lectures we have 
endeavored to lay down the prin- 
ciples which we are now to apply to 
the great question of the day. We feel well 
assured that no one can reasonably dispute 
the conclusions we have drawn from the 
most obvious truths. Reason, well under- 
stood, has no conflict with faith, but is, on 
the contrary, its handmaiden. All depends 
upon the fact, to be well established, that 
God has made a revelation to man, and that 
He has authenticated that revelation by suffi- 




■k 



Revelation and Protestantism. 167 

cient testimony. We have considered the 
evidence which reason has a right to ask, and 
with which it ought to be satisfied. When 
that evidence is afforded us, every dictate of 
our enlightened nature will call us to hear, 
believe, and obey the voice of God. Here 
the understanding may rest without fear. If 
God be not true, there is no such thing as 
truth. 

Yet objects to us the inquirer, that there 
are many claimants to the authority of reve- 
lation, that there is discordance among those 
who believe in truths supernatural, and that, 
consequently, it is not easy to know where 
the voice of God is to be heard. We must, 
therefore, apply the principles we have es- 
tablished, and try the claimants by the tests 
of reason, which we have seen to be accurate 
and sufficient. Any system that will not 
stand these tests can have no rightful title 



1 68 Revelation and Protestantism. 

to the obedience of men. Moreover, there 
can be no discord in a true revelation, where, 
of necessity, every part must be consistent. 
There is only one God, and there can be 
only one religion which has His sanction. 

Looking around us at the position of those 
who believe in any divine intervention for 
the good of our race, we find certainly, sects 
and organizations whose name is " legion ;" 
but they may be fairly ranked in two classes, 
under the denominations of Protestants and 
Catholics. It is our purpose briefly to ex- 
amine, this evening, the relation which the 
former bear to a well-attested revelation, leav- 
ing the claims of the Catholic Church for the 
discussion of our closing lecture. It will 
be our duty to define Protestantism, to see 
how far it can be called a teacher, to ask for 
the proofs of its divine mission, and in its 
history to determine if it has any thing more 
than human vitality. 



Revelation and Protestantism. 169 



I. 

Protestantism is a negative term, implying 
more the denial of doctrines than the asser- 
tion of them. In fact, Protestants are those 
who protest against the creed of the Catholic 
Church, either in a body or as individuals. 
The general term has a very wide applica- 
tion, and embraces all who protest, whatever 
may be their difference of opinion or mutual 
animosity. There is almost every conceiv- 
able shade of belief on every point of doc- 
trine. Some approach the dogmas and dis- 
cipline of the Catholic Church, while others 
are as far as possible removed from every 
appearance of ecclesiastical organization. 
Some receive the mystery of the Trinity and 
accept the system of sacramental grace, while 
others are found who deny nearly every thing 
but the existence of God. There are various 



170 Revelation and Protestantism. 

bodies or churches holding different ideas, 
and there are those who belong to no organi- 
zation whatever, who must be included in 
the denomination of Protestants. They call 
themselves Christians because the greater 
number accept our Lord Jesus Christ as the 
founder of their religion, although some re- 
ceive Him only as a messenger directly or 
indirectly from God, and not as a divine 
person. 

The origin of these representatives of re- 
velation is very singular. The movement of 
the sixteenth century, generally called the 
Reformation, gave birth to their system ; and 
while the first use of the term Protestant may 
be traced to the assembly held in Spire in 
1529, it became shortly after the appellation 
of all who, seceding from the Roman Catholic 
Church, denied the right of that church to 
teach, and inveighed against any of its doc- 



Revelation ajid Protestantism. 171 

trines. Up to that time all believers in Chris- 
tianity had accepted the authority of the 
church as the authorized teacher of the faith 
revealed to the world by our Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Protestants revolted against this long- 
received and undisputed claim, asserting that 
the truths of Christianity were contained in 
the Bible, and that every individual mind was 
able there to find them out, there to read his 
creed, there to discover the full proportions 
of his articles of belief. The various doc- 
trines held for ages as integral parts of the 
Christian faith were to be examined, and 
approved or rejected by the individual reason. 

At first there was no ecclesiastical organ- 
ization, and the upholders of the Reforma- 
tion were held together by only a common 
bond of sympathy. But as time went on, 
and the necessity of some greater external 
unity was felt, churches were formed bear- 



172 Revelation and Protestantism. 

ing different titles and adopting different 
creeds. From these have originated all the 
various religious bodies which cover our 
land. Some retained many of the forms 
and much of the polity of the ancient church, 
while others, stigmatizing the Papacy as the 
Harlot of Babylon spoken of in the Apoca- 
lypse, eschewed every thing which bore in 
any way " the mark of the beast." Greater 
diversity could not be conceived of, and the 
progress of time has only increased the dis- 
cord. One church has given birth to many 
others, who in turn, with an unparalleled 
fecundity, count a more numerous progeny. 
Every year beholds new accessions and new 
divisions, and so the face of Protestantism is 
ever changing. Yet all agree in rejecting 
the Holy Roman Church, and, therefore, by 
this one negative characteristic are bound 
in sympathy. If this system be the true 



Revelation and Protestantism. 173 

representative of revelation, then certainly 
the Catholic system is not, since there is a 
direct contradiction between them. If any 
number of Protestants accept portions of 
the old creed, we are to understand that 
they do so on the authority of private judg- 
ment, and not because of any ecclesiastical 
influence. 

There is, therefore, a direct opposition 
which can never be removed between Pro- 
testant and Catholic Christianity ; and if one 
is right the other is wrong, and there is no 
middle ground on which the intellect may 
rest. These two systems dispute the right 
to teach the truths of revelation, and be- 
tween them there never can be harmony. 
Let us, in the name of God, be open to the 
convictions of reason, and apply without 
fear the tests of our former lectures. 

Before proceeding to our next point, how- 



174 Revelation and Protesta7itism. 

ever, we briefly note that there are perhaps 
those who would like to hold a middle 
ground, and be at the same time neither 
Catholics nor Protestants. We ask any- 
honest mind if such a position is a possibi- 
lity. We may call ourselves by any name 
we choose ; the question is not what we 
are called, but what we are. And on the 
definition we have made, all those organiza- 
tions are embraced under the general term 
of Protestantism who owe their origin to the 
Reformation, and agree in protesting against 
the Church of Rome. The quantity of pro- 
test is not material, since the right to deny 
one doctrine of what professes to be reveal- 
ed religion implies the right to deny all. 
The truths of revelation must be accepted 
as they stand in a body, or they cannot rea- 
sonably be accepted at all. 



Revelation and Protestantism. 175 



II. 

From what we have now seen, it will not 
be difficult to decide the claims of Protest- 
antism as a teacher. We shall observe 
that it teaches nothing clearly, pretends to 
no authority, and is able to present us with 
none. 

1. We cannot view the various sects in- 
dividually, since time would not allow us 
to do so, but the general remarks we are 
to make will apply to them all. Taken to- 
gether they teach nothing; for, on compar- 
ing one with another, we find that the doc- 
trines asserted by one are rejected by an- 
other. Perhaps beyond the truths taught 
us by nature there is no agreement what- 
ever, and even these truths are sometimes at- 
tacked in whole or in part. As to dogmas 
said to be revealed, there can hardly be found 



176 Revelation and Protestantism. 

one on which there is perfect accord. The 
divinity of the founder of Christianity has 
been denied, and certainly one would argue 
that this is an essential condition of the 
whole scheme of revelation through Him. 
No one could make up a creed out of the 
confessions of the many sects ; and if such a 
thing were possible, it could not be held 
with any consistency, since where many 
teachers really teach contradictions, there is 
nothing taught. 

If we separate the various divisions of Pro- 
testantism, and seek to follow any one of 
them, we meet with new difficulty. Nothing 
is taught distinctly, and truths admitted are 
not followed to their just conclusions. The 
confession has many interpretations even 
within the same spiritual communion, and 
there is no one to decide which is right or 
which is wrong. The resurrection of the 



Revelation and Protestantism. 177 

body, for example, will be professed in the 
written formulary, and many who hold to the 
formulary will deny that this refers to the 
body of flesh which we have now, and ex- 
plain it by the creation of a new and spiritual 
body. We know a large and wide-spread 
communion which differs on the question of 
man's fall by original sin, and consequently 
on his need of a redemption. We know 
another where there is a diametrical opposi- 
tion on the question of the utility of forms in 
religion, on the necessity of baptism, and on 
the existence of any visible signs of inward 
grace. We know religious bodies where the 
members and ministers, opposing each other, 
are as much estranged as if they belonged to 
different communions. 

Here, then, Protestantism is no teacher, 
since it proposes no positive truth ; and if it 
be concordant in the negation of certain 



178 Revelation and Protestantism. 

articles of belief, this is not teaching. I need 
no man and no authority to tell me what is 
not true ; I ask for truth, which is the positive 
want of my soul, and this I need in clear and 
unmistakable terms. 

2. No one can teach without authority 
clearly shown. He who proposes a doctrine 
with hesitancy or uncertainty does not pro- 
pose it as an article of faith, but merely as a 
possible opinion. There is only one authority 
which can teach any supernatural truth, and 
that is God's. He only can know it, and He 
only can impart it. When such authority is 
not shown, I cannot be asked to believe. No 
man and no body of men has any right to 
dictate my faith. Now, is there one Protest- 
ant church which pretends to teach on the 
authority of God, and therefore to be an 
infallible witness of what has been divinely 
revealed ? If there is, we do not know it, and 



Revelation and Protestantism. 179 

have never even heard of it. If there is no 
individual sect which has this authority, then 
certainly all taken together do not possess it ; 
and where it is not known in the individuals, 
it is not known in the collection of individu- 
als. Surely, then, according to the plainest 
demonstrations of reason, Protestants cannot 
exercise that faith which we have defined, 
and which rests solely on the divine veracity. 
We take them at their own word, and give 
them just that authority which they claim, 
and nothing more. They do not claim any 
divine authority, and why, therefore, should 
they be thought to possess it ? 

3. It has been said, however, that, although 
Protestantism has no divine authority, and 
pretends to none, yet the revelation of God is 
contained in the Holy Scriptures, which are 
the common property of all faithful men, and 
that the truths of God's revelation are plainly 



180 Revelation and Protestantism. 

announced in them. We answer, then, in the 
clearest argument, which it seems to us no 
honest mind can resist: Firstly, the whole 
authority of Protestantism is waived by this 
assertion, unless the power to interpret the 
Scriptures infallibly be possessed by one or 
all of the many sects. Such power is claimed 
nowhere, and therefore, according to the obvi- 
ous sense of mankind, Protestantism becomes 
an abstraction, and has no longer a concrete 
existence. It represents an idea, and is not 
a body of living men. 

Secondly. If the Bible, interpreted by 
the individual, and therefore fallible mind, 
be the authority on which alone divine 
truth rests, then there are important ques- 
tions to be answered, and by each individual, 
before he commences the work of finding out 
what he should believe, a work which he has 
no right to intrust to another. He must 



Revelation and Protestantism. 181 

determine, without the fear of error, what 
the Bible is, and of what parts it consists. 
He must prove by an infallible, that is, by a 
divine authority that this Bible, in its vari- 
ous parts, is the inspired word of God. His 
own opinion will not be sufficient. He 
must have the proofs of a revelation which 
we have spoken of in our last lecture. If 
these are not afforded, he can neither con- 
vince himself nor others. He cannot trust 
to any translation of the Scriptures, but 
must recur to the original text, to which 
alone the character of inspiration is affixed. 
When these points are settled, has he found 
a teacher ? Is the truth contained in the 
sacred books so plainly expressed, that, to 
use a phrase peculiarly Protestant, " The 
ignorant and wayfaring man, though a fool, 
cannot err therein"? Let history reply, 
against whose facts there is no argument, 



1 82 Revelation and Protestantism. 

From that which has been, we may safely 
conclude that which shall be. Men have 
not found the Scriptures so clear as to cause 
them to agree on any one article of belief. 
And the truth is, that no book whatever 
can be so written that the individual mind 
may not differently interpret it. And when 
you add the power of prejudice, and the in- 
fluence of passion, there is no further need 
of disputation. " This is my body," is made to 
mean, this is a figure of my body. " Whose 
sins you shall remit they are remitted," is 
applied only to external ecclesiastical dis- 
cipline, as " I and my Father are one " is 
explained of unity of sentiment. We re- 
peat that God Himself cannot teach by a 
book, unless in every individual instance 
He send special light to guard against error. 

And passing over all other arguments, if 
the Bible be the only divine way of teach- 



Revelation and Protestantism. 183 

ing truth, has not God signally failed ? 
Where is His revelation ? 

The greater part of mankind have had no 
way of knowing what the Scriptures contain 
except through the medium of others. The 
art of printing was not discovered before 
the fifteenth century, and until that time the 
sacred manuscripts were accessible to but 
few. Were the Scriptures privately inter- 
preted the rule of faith before that time ? 
And even since that date and the more 
general diffusion of knowledge, are the 
majority of men able to read, and thus see 
with their own eyes? That cannot be the 
Christian religion which only commenced 
four hundred years ago, nor have the Scrip- 
tures ever been to the individual reason in 
place of a teacher. 

4. The remarks we have made upon the 
subject of private judgment apply to the 



184 Revelation and Protestantism. 

whole system of Protestantism, since, accord- 
ing to the principles which lie at its very 
foundation, every doctrine is referred to this 
ordeal. On the private interpretation of the 
Bible the original Reformers justified their 
secession from the ancient and received Chris- 
tianity, and on the use of this same right the 
constant changes which history has record- 
ed have taken place in their organization 
and articles of belief. We have only then 
to repeat our argument, and conclude that, 
where every individual mind is the judge 
of the intrinsic credibility of a doctrine, there 
is no authoritative teaching, no faith, no 
appearance of the necessary conditions of 
a revelation. How, then, for one moment, 
can the reason accept a theory so irrational, 
which confuses the most evident principles 
of philosophy, and subverts the very idea 
of truth supernatural ? And how unwise 



Revelation and Protestantism. 185 

for those who transgress the primary laws 
of the human mind, to appeal to that rea- 
son which everywhere they disobey and 
trample under foot ? 

in. 

Finding that Protestantism can teach us 
nothing, we might conclude that it can in no 
way be the representative of a divine revela- 
tion. But let us continue our application of 
the tests of reason, and ask for the proofs of 
its mission from God. The evidence which 
established Christianity will not apply to 
the religious system we are examining, be- 
cause it is essentially modern and in all its 
features an innovation upon that which had 
been known as the doctrine of Christ. 

We need new evidence which will direct- 
ly apply to Protestanism itself. It began 



1 86 Revelation and Protestantism. 

by attacking the church which for four- 
teen centuries had been the only teacher of 
truth supernatural, and its chief character- 
istic is still to war against the same church. 
The fact of secession proves a contradiction 
and the inauguration of a new system. If 
it retained certain of the dogmas of the old 
faith, it did so professedly by the exercise 
of private judgment. It could not have 
kept them on the authority of the church 
so violently renounced. And whatever evi- 
dence these dogmas may have, they do not 
derive it from the movement of the Reform- 
ers. If it be said that Christianity became 
corrupt, that the Catholic Church did not 
keep the doctrine revealed, or overwhelmed 
it by inventions and superstitious practices, 
then, according to such a supposition, the 
revelation made through our Lord Jesus 
Christ had failed, and it was necessary for 



.Revelation and Protestantism. 187 

God to introduce a new one, or to revive 
the old one by the usual proofs of a divine 
interposition. There is much greater op- 
position between Protestantism and Catholi- 
city, than there was between Judaism and 
Christianity. The old law was a figure of 
the new, and was fulfilled in it. " I came," 
said our Lord, " not to destroy, but to fulfil ;" 
while the reform cuts down the church, 
root and branch, and inveighs against her 
doctrine and worship, and above all, her 
authority. The Jew might have become a 
Christian without renouncing any essential 
of his creed. The Catholic cannot become 
a Protestant without utterly renouncing his 
former belief, and adopting new modes of 
worship, new grounds of faith. Yet we ask 
and receive for the revelation of Christ the 
unmistakable proofs of divine mission, and 
therefore much more must we do so on the 



1 88 Revelation and Protestantism. 

introduction of Protestantism. We, then, ac- 
cording to reason, demand of the Reformers 
or founders of their system the testimony of 
heaven that they are sent of God to teach 
a new revelation, or revive an old one lost 
in corruption. 

i. Miracles are not pretended, and so far 
as we have heard, were not wrought through 
the agency of any of these new teachers. 
They appealed to the word of God, and from 
it argued the tenets they were pleased to 
hold. They applied prophecy, some in one 
way, some in another, but no one of them 
claimed a mission from on high to be attest- 
ed by miracles. They demanded the right 
to treat at will the received Christianity, but 
professed to show no proof of special inspira- 
tion. They even went so far as to assail the 
miracles of the Catholic Church as imposi- 
tions upon the credulous, and part and parcel 



Revelation and Protestantism. 189 

of the dark superstition which had bound the 
minds of men so many years. They admit- 
ted generally no miracles save those record- 
ed in Scripture, and consequently could ap- 
peal to none as the evidence of their mission. 
Martin Luther professed that he had an ex- 
traordinary vocation from God, and yet gave 
as the proof of it only the remarkable success 
of his preaching, which he considered mira- 
culous. We shall shortly have occasion to 
speak of this success. But he did not argue 
so with Muncer, the Anabaptist, who assum- 
ed the title and function of a pastor. He 
would not allow him to prove his doctrine 
from the Scriptures, but ordered that he 
should be asked, " Who had given him com- 
mission to teach ? Should he answer, God, 
then let him prove it by a manifest miracle ; 
for when God intends to alter any thing in 
the ordinary form of mission, it is by such 



190 Revelation and Protestantism. 

signs that He declares Himself." * Why did 
not this remarkable man apply to his own 
case the argument he used against others? 
Here, then, Protestantism comes into the 
world singularly unblest. It undertakes to 
overthrow a great and universally extended 
religion, and brings no miracle whatever to 
prove that God is its author. How can it 
ask the consent of the reason when it pre- 
sents no motive of credibility? 

2. The same want of credentials appears 
when we ask if any of their leaders were 
gifted with prophecy. Unfortunately for 
them, the few predictions they ventured 
upon failed, and they confined themselves 
generally to interpretations of the Apoca- 
lypse, none of which have been verified. 
Luther foretold more than once the downfall 
of the Papacy. " The papal reign was to 

* Sleidan, 1. v. 



Revelation and Protestantism. 191 

expire on a sudden by the breath of Jesus 
Christ ; namely, by the preaching of Luther. 
Daniel was express on this point. St. Paul 
left no doubt. The space of two years was 
the longest reprieve he could allow." # Many 
of his followers have continued the same 
strain of prophecy, and yet the Papacy 
still lives with as much apparent vitality as 
ever. We are not aware of any other at- 
tempts at prediction of the future. The 
curious explanations of the mysterious utter- 
ances of the Apocalyse can hardly be consider- 
ed in the light of genuine prophecies. They 
have not yet been fulfilled in the sense in 
which they were interpreted, and, as days go 
by, the likelihood of such fulfilment becomes 
less and less. We need not, therefore, dwell 
any longer upon this point. Whatever the 
Reformers might have been, God gave them 

* Bossuet's Variations, i. 40. 



192 Revelation and Protestantism. 

no knowledge of future events to vindicate 
their extraordinary mission. 

3. Martin Luther appealed to the success 
of his preaching, as a miraculous sign of di- 
vine favor. We have already seen that suc- 
cess alone is not a note of the true religion. 
Many false religions have succeeded, and 
that to a most wonderful degree. Witness, 
for example, the religion of Mohammed, 
which spread with the most remarkable 
celerity, and still lives in the observance of 
a large part of mankind. Success, to be a 
note of revelation, depends upon three con- 
ditions : First, That the doctrines taught do 
not flatter the senses or excite the animal pas- 
sions ; secondly, That the instrumentality of 
the moral power of these doctrines is alone 
employed, and that no arm of human force is 
used ; and, thirdly, That the success be a 
veritable one, not simply the destruction of a 



Revelation and Protestantism. 193 

certain religious belief, but the permanent 
establishment of a new one. Let us apply 
these three conditions and see how far 
Luther's claim holds good. First, The 
doctrines of the Reformers did flatter the ani- 
mal side of man, so far as this, that they pro- 
claimed the specious notion of liberty to the 
reason, and freedom from all the restraints 
which the old religion had imposed. The 
whole system of penance was struck at its 
root ; good works were no longer necessities 
in the scheme of salvation, and every pre- 
tence of ecclesiastical authority ceased. Each 
man was set free to follow the promptings 
of his own private judgment. The vows of 
poverty, chastity, and obedience, the celibacy 
of the clergy, the utility of austerities were 
all assailed. Now, we do not here discuss 
the merits of any of these things. Our single 
point is, that the removal of these received 



194 Revelation and Protestantism. 

notions of God's service opened the way to 
the gratification of passion. The time when 
Luther commenced his work was also very 
favorable to the success of his movement. 
There were abuses in discipline which the 
church was laboring to correct, men were 
becoming impatient of all restraint, and ra- 
tionalism was ready to strike a decisive blow. 
So when the opening was made, the torrent 
flowed on with fury, bursting all bounds. 
The first Reformers were themselves astonish- 
ed at the result of their own movement, and 
made vain efforts to restrain the excesses of 
their followers. There is nothing wonderful 
in the sight of men following the instincts 
of appetite, and rushing in the direction of 
license. When, then, we see reasons enough 
in the frailty of man for the success of the 
Reformation, we cannot ascribe to the hand of 



Revelation a?id Protestantism. 195 

God alone the rapidity with which Luther's 
doctrines spread throughout Europe. 

Secondly, It was not owing to the moral 
force of Luther's propositions that they 
were embraced by so many. Eagerness for 
liberty in its widest sense, and freedom from 
obligations voluntarily incurred were cer- 
tainly the ruling motives with very many. 
And the arm of civil power was very often 
called in, and, wherever the reformation ex- 
tended, the flame of revolution was speedily 
kindled. In some countries the Protestant 
confession was introduced and established by 
the patronage of the court. In England, for 
example, the king almost forced the reforma- 
tion upon an unwilling people. When the 
arm of human power united with the gratifi- 
cation of passion, we need not wonder at the 
progress of the new doctrines. 

Thirdly, It is seriously to be questioned 



196 Revelation and Protestantism. 

whether demolition was not the principal 
work of Protestantism, whether any religion 
having a positive character was established 
by it. The first truths proposed by Luther 
did not stand even during his lifetime. In- 
numerable teachers arose, each with a new 
doctrine of their own, or a new version 
of an old one. The landmarks of the 
first reformers were soon swept away, and it 
is difficult to gather any positive creed from 
the host of their followers. Negative teach- 
ing there certainly was, greater and greater 
departure from the catholic faith ; but in this 
we see only the hand of the destroyer, not 
the work of the master-builder. Men lost the 
faith which they had, and gained opinions of 
a doubtful nature which could hardly be 
called faith, and many ceased to have any re- 
ligious belief at all. Under all these circum- 
stances it will be difficult to predicate any 



Revelation and Protestantism. 197 

real success to the system of Protestantism as 
it first appeared to the world. There are 
very few at this day who hold the views of 
the early reformers ; and although nations and 
kingdoms fell away from the Catholic Church, 
this is no more the proof of the establishment 
of a true religion, than a wide-spread revo- 
lution is the necessary preface to a solid and 
permanent government. Scarcely any thing 
that Luther and his co-workers established, 
has remained, except prejudice and hostility 
to the catholic religion. 

4. In judging of the influence of Protes- 
tantism upon the mind and heart of man, 
we must, with all candor, weigh those results 
which are justly to be attributed to it alone. 
If any system of doctrine purifies men from 
vice, and leads them to the practice of high 
virtue, it is so far an evidence of divine favor. 
But in Protestantism we must separate any of 



198 Revelation and Protestantism. 

the doctrines received and professed before 
the Reformation from those which were new, 
and only take into consideration that which 
is peculiar to itself. It would be unfair to 
give the reformers the credit of the faith be- 
lieved, and practised before their own day, 
and before the revolution of which they were 
the promoters. We ask, then, has Protestant- 
ism been the parent of morality and high 
virtue, and has its influence upon mankind 
been salutary ? Let us examine these three 
points, its effect upon faith, upon morals, and 
upon society in general. 

1. Faith in God's revelation lies confes- 
sedly at the foundation of all that tends to 
man's highest good. If God has made a 
revelation, and man rejects it, he does him- 
self and those whom he can influence the 
greatest possible injury. For he does all in 
his power to divert man from the great su- 



Revelation and Protestantism. 199 

pernatural destiny to which he is called. Any 
thing, then, which shakes confidence in re- 
vealed truth is of the greatest possible evil to 
society, and could hardly be ascribed to God. 
Now, we say that such was the result of Pro- 
testantism. It took away from mankind the 
living teacher on whose words for genera- 
tions the faithful had rested, and it gave no 
substitute. It remitted men to the Bible, 
there to learn their faith, but gave no suffi- 
cient proofs of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures, nor any unerring clue to their interpre- 
tation. The motives of credibility which 
reason demands for assenting to a revelation 
were all taken away, or so confused that they 
lost their power to persuade. Upright men 
asked for clear explanations and arguments 
in favor of Christianity, and received nothing 
satisfactory, and so gave up all in disgust. 
Reason, shocked with the discordance and 



4 



200 Revelation and Protestantism. 

antagonism which characterized the profes- 
sors of the new system, recoiled upon blank 
infidelity. Change after change passed over 
the scene, as every day marked the birth of 
some new theory, or the organization of some 
new church. Thus may really be attributed 
to the reformation, the divisions which now 
prevail among Christians, the scepticism and 
indifference which reign wherever that religi- 
ous movement has had sway. Can God be 
called the author of such confusion, or will 
any one honestly say that such a state of 
things is pleasing to Him who is Truth un- 
changing and Mercy ineffable? Is it of no 
consequence that disunion and uncertainty 
as to all the essentials of Christian belief are 
the inseparable characteristics of Protestan- 
tism wherever it is to be found ? 

2. As faith in the divine being is the 
foundation of morality, we would naturally 



Revelation and Protestantism. 201 

look for serious results upon the morals of 
men wherever it is attacked or subverted. 
Nothing sooner flows into the life of man 
than any resistance to the divine light. We 
are far from accusing Protestants of immo- 
rality, nor do we accuse them of consistency 
with their own principles. The majority of 
them are little concerned with theories, and 
many never reflect upon the creed they have 
received from their parents or associates. 
But the tendency of their system is to infi- 
delity, and the tendency of infidelity is to 
immorality. The forgetfulness of God in 
the daily concerns of life leads at once to the 
practical denial of His moral government. 
We charge this denial to Protestantism, and 
we find in it many fruitful sources of immo- 
rality. It shakes, by its system of negations, 
all our confidence in the great facts of reve- 
lation ; and as these facts can be overlooked 



202 Revelation and Protestantism. 



by no intelligent mind, it introduces doubt 
into all man's relations with his Maker. By 
many the divine providence is reduced to an 
inexorable fate, and by nearly all Protestants 
the value of good works is denied. The 
doctrine of retribution in a future state has 
ceased to be held by some of the new sects ; 
while the ideas of hell and purgatory are dis- 
missed as the dreams of ancient and un- 
enlightened days. Exhortations to virtue are 
often founded solely on self-love, wherein we 
are taught that man is happier if he break 
not the laws of his being. Secret sins, known 
only to God and the sinner, do not enter into 
the common estimate of vice, while all notion 
of penance or austerity is laughed at as the 
delusion of weak or superstitious minds. 
Under these circumstances, it can hardly 
be alleged that Protestantism leads to high 
morality; and the real virtue which we see 



Revelation and Protestantism. 203 

among its followers is owing to the doctrines 
which they hold in common with the Catholic 
Church, and to the grace of God which would 
guide them to a better and truer faith. The 
principle of private judgment is the logical 
foundation of infidelity, while among Catho- 
lics the immorality which exists is due simply 
to the transgression of the plain commands 
of their religion, for which the church can in 
no way be made responsible. 

3. Society, as constituted by Christian prin- 
ciples and enlightened by supernatural faith, 
owes its existence to the Catholic Church. 
The rights and duties springing from the re- 
lations of the individual to the family and to 
the state are all established by the law of 
Christianity. The dignity of woman, the 
sacredness of marriage, the principle of sub- 
jection to lawful authority, are evident by the 
sanctions of revelation, and the church which 



204 Revelation and Protestantism. 

converted the world from barbarism and the 
dark superstitions of paganism is the founder 
of order and the mother of all true social 
progress. Any movement which disturbs the 
columns on which society rests is fruitful of 
untold evils. If, then, the Protestant reforma- 
tion has shaken the principle of obedience to 
just authority, and opened the way to license, 
if, under the holy name of liberty, it has kin- 
dled the fires of revolution, then has it laid the 
axe to the very root of society and given its 
voice in favor of anarchy. If it has taken 
from the sanctity and indissolubility of the 
marriage bond, by lowering that divinely 
appointed relation to a mere human contract 
from which the parties can be freed by human 
tribunals, then has it uprooted the very foun- 
dations of social order. We leave the candid 
student of history to determine these ques- 
tions of fact, and in the light of events trans- 



Revelation and Protestantism. 205 

piring every day around us, to judge where 
the evils which threaten the destruction of 
the family and the state shall find their pro- 
per remedy. The experience of three hun- 
dred years ought to be a faithful teacher, if 
men would only listen and reflect. 

Certainly the doctrines of Protestantism 
can bring no evidence of divine sanction by 
the fruits of their influence upon the world. 
They have done their most to do away with 
revealed truth, to produce doubt as to all 
things supernatural, to lead men to infidelity, 
and so to introduce disorder into all the re- 
lations of life. Such doctrines with such re- 
sults cannot be from God, the ever prolific 
source of harmony and beauty, who in all 
His works showeth forth not only the glory 
of His power, but also the perfection of His 
wisdom. 



206 Revelation and Protestantism. 



IV. 

We have seen in a former lecture that a 
true revelation from God ought to have the 
means of extending itself and preserving its 
vitality from age to age. We have also 
proved that it would be against reason to 
suppose that God would introduce into the 
world, by signs and wonders, a revelation, 
and then allow it to die away or be lost in 
the confusions of opinion. As every tree 
came from the divine hand having its seed 
in itself, so the more glorious fabric of high 
and holy truth must have the principle of 
life in its own bosom. Reason could suggest 
to us no other way of teaching mankind than 
by the lips of a competent teacher, and there- 
fore, where such an instrumentality is want- 
ing, how shall the mind be enlightened ? 
This leads us to our concluding test, with 



Revelation and Protestantism. 207 

which we shall leave our present argument. 
Protestantism has no unerring teacher, no 
body of essential doctrine, is ever subject to 
variations which are destructive of all faith, 
and, therefore, has no vitality and cannot be 
a messenger from on high. 

1. As we have fully shown, there can be no 
teacher where the individual mind is made 
the judge of the intrinsic credibility of every 
truth proposed. And, in fact, among Pro- 
testants all infallibility is denied in express 
words ; and, even if the Scriptures be admit- 
ted infallible, an unerring interpreter is not 
to be found. We conclude at once that he 
who does not teach infallibly does not teach at 
all, and that where infallibility does not exist 
there is no teacher in the strict sense of the 
word. There was no such authority among 
Protestants in the beginning, and there is 
no provision for continuing it even if there 



208 Revelation and Protestantism. 

had been. No line of teachers exists, since, 
in all the reformed churches, power flows 
from the flock to the pastor — from below, and 
not from above. All distinction between the 
priesthood and the laity by any divine ap- 
pointment, is removed. The people have as 
much right to study the Scriptures as the 
pastors. The idea of a commission from 
God to a body of teachers, having power to 
confer their own powers upon their successors, 
was abandoned at the very first stage of the 
Reformation. This was a necessary step to 
justify the secession from Catholic Christen- 
dom and the renunciation of the ministry 
regularly descended from the apostles of 
Christ. In the various churches which were 
then constituted, the election of the ministry 
came from the people, or was assumed with- 
out any external call, and, although some of 
these organizations have continued to the 



Revelation and Protestantism. 209 

present time, they have been subject to the 
most essential variations. There is no con- 
tinuity of life in Protestantism, no power to 
reproduce its like. And we are not aware 
of any one of the reformed churches which 
claims to teach with authority. If even 
Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and Melancthon 
were inspired men, there is no one to repre- 
sent them at this day, no one who bears the 
credentials of mission from them, while, in 
the confusion of claimants upholding dif- 
ferent opinions, the inquirer for truth meets 
with no definite answer. We do not see 
how he can find a response to the question, 
" What shall I do to be saved ?" 

2. Not only is there no teacher whose 
word is reliable, but there is not even a creed 
or body of essential doctrine. We argue 
strictly when we give to Protestants all the 
liberty which they claim, and decide that no 



210 Revelation and Protestantism. 

man and no sect has a right to dictate to 
another. Comparing, therefore, the testi- 
monies of the various sects, we find no body 
of truth to which all agree. In fact, we do 
not find one single doctrine to which all 
subscribe, and, as we are not willing to set one 
above another, we have no test whatever of 
orthodoxy. Where, then, is the revelation of 
Christ? What is Protestantism, that we 
may define and know it ? We return to our 
first assertion. It is a system which denies 
certain truths, which proposes nothing what- 
ever to faith, a system of negations which 
can consistently present nothing positive to 
the mind. Where, then, there can theoreti- 
cally be no doctrine to be taught, there is no 
place for a teacher. 

3. Any variation in teaching is an argu- 
ment against the authority proposing a dog- 
ma, and is destructive of the dogma itself. 



Revelation mid Protestantism. 211 

If the first reformers had no mission from 
God for the extraordinary work they under- 
took, they were the most miserable of impos- 
tors. If they had such mission, the truths 
they taught were divine and unchangeable. 
Any departure from these truths supposes 
either the introduction of error, or that the 
original teachers were not from God. Va- 
riations therefore break down the whole sys- 
tem, and leave no foundation whatever for faith. 
The prophet that hesitates or vacillates in the 
message he has to deliver is no apostle from 
on high. His confusions mark the heresiarch 
and the seducer. Now, we are bold enough 
to declare, first, That all the leaders of the 
Reformation hesitated in their utterance of 
doctrine, and were subject to strange varia- 
tions of opinion. Which is the true Protestan- 
tism, that which they began, or that which 
they left? 



212 Revelation and Protestantism. 

Secondly. So great and radical changes 
have passed over the face of reformed Christi- 
anity, that there no longer exists the Protes- 
tantism which they begun or left. Old age 
does not necessarily destroy identity; but 
here we have nothing to remind us of what 
has been, save the denial of the Catholic 
religion and the assumed right of private 
judgment. 

We do not know how the honest mind can 
find the motives of faith in such a system, 
and do not wonder that, failing to see any 
traces of divine authority, it falls, where so 
many have been wrecked, in blank infidelity. 
Judged by the true signs of vitality, Protes- 
tantism has no life, no ability to contend with 
the decay which attends all the ravages of 
time, and no prospect of a future. The evils 
which it has engendered may live from age 
to age, and be fruitful of manifold results in 



Revelation and Protestantism. 213 

intellectual and spiritual ruin ; but itself, the 
parent of disorder and infidelity, has changed 
its face with the shifting of each scene, and its 
constant variations mark the power of death 
which has dominion over all human things. 

Here, then, we rest the argument which 
establishes that there is no connection be- 
tween divine revelation and Protestantism. 
Viewed as a system in the abstract, or as 
existing in the various sects which bear its 
banner, it has not even one mark by which 
the reason can know it as the work of God. 
Tried by the fair conclusions of the under- 
standing, it has already been condemned as a 
tissue of inconsistencies which no rational 
mind can accept. Will it be believed that 
they who have not one reasonable ground of 
belief, not one foot on which to stand, attempt 
to array reason against the Catholic faith, as 
if stern logic did not utterly confound their 



214 Revelation ajid Protestantism. 

every position? Would to God that the 
earnest and sincere would but open their 
eyes to the plain deductions of reason, and 
follow the teachings of their own intelligence. 
It would lead them to eschew contradictions, 
to cast aside prejudice unworthy of any 
reasonable mind, and to fear not truth in any 
phase in which it presents itself. Protestant- 
ism can never be made to bear the stamp of 
divine revelation, and the attempt so to repre- 
sent it before mankind will end in disbelief 
of all things supernatural and contempt for 
all religion. History is our witness that we 
do not exaggerate. God hath set His signs 
high in heaven, that they may fail not to 
stand as lasting testimonies ; and the light of 
nature leads to that of grace, and reason 
guides to the threshold of faith. In all, God 
guides the soul formed in His own image, 
Himself the unchanging truth, the great end, 
and sovereign rest of His creatures. 



Lecture V. 



Revelation and the J^atholic J^hurch. 

E approach the end of our short 
discussion. Having called reason 
and nature to our aid, we have 
been able to determine the conditions of a 
revelation, and by them we have tried Pro- 
testantism, and have not found one proof or 
one sign of the divine sanction. Nothing 
remains but to test, in the same manner, the 
Catholic Church. If she will not stand these 
tests, then she must be discarded. If she 
satisfies all these conditions of reason, then 
every rational man must confess her to be 




216 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 



the messenger of truth, the house of God and 
gate of heaven. 

Let us proceed, as in our last lecture, to 
define the Catholic Church, to examine her 
constitution, that we may know if she has the 
qualities necessary to a teacher, to ask for 
the proofs of her divine mission, and to de- 
termine whether she has a true vitality with 
the promise of perseverance in the future. 

i. 

The Catholic Church is that one body of 
Christians which, recognizing Christ as her 
founder and invisible head, recognizes the 
successor of St. Peter as her head upon earth, 
and is, therefore, bound together by the most 
rigid unity. She is called sometimes the Holy 
Roman Church, not on account of any na- 
tionality, for she is essentially Catholic, but on 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 217 

account of her relations to the Apostolic See 
and her august pastor. Throughout the 
world she is easily known by all men, having 
everywhere an unmistakable identity. No 
counterfeit has been able to retain either her 
name or image. Subject to various for- 
tunes, time has not weakened her strength 
nor taken from her vigor. Schisms and 
heresies have arisen, but have been unable 
to mar her unity or disturb the distinctness 
of her teaching. No one has ever mistaken 
any thing else for her. Ancient eastern sees 
have rebelled against her authority, and 
wandered from her sheltering arms ; yet in 
their faded and lifeless fires no one can re- 
cognize the unction of Pentecost, and the 
quickening breath of the Word made Flesh. 
Men put on her garments and borrow her 
majestic ceremonial, yet the sober world 
looks on as at the mimicry of the stage or 



218 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

the pantomime of the humorous. The lion's 
skin does not make the lion, nor the dress 
the man. That which she is, nothing else 
can be, and in her kind she stands solitary, 
without a rival. It is a fact that she has 
existed since the days of Christ, and that her 
ministry descends in an unbroken line from 
the Apostles. No fact is more evident than 
this, and it is also admitted that for fourteen 
centuries she was the only representative of 
Christianity upon earth. The Reformation, as 
Protestants have termed it, caused the falling 
off of large numbers of her priests and 
people, but did not disturb her unity, shake 
her doctrine, or discourage her in the work 
of evangelizing the world. Misrepresenta- 
tion and calumny have turned many away 
from her; but above all she has persevered, 
and stands before mankind at this day with 
the same claims of divine mission that she 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 219 

has ever made. There is something wonder- 
ful in her power wherever she makes herself 
known. No student of history can overlook 
her, no thinking man can ignore her. She 
is the most striking feature on the page of 
time since the birth of Jesus Christ. All 
the world knows that she professes to be the 
one Church of God, to which all His pro- 
mises are made, the divinely inspired oracle 
of truth to the nations. If such claims are 
just, then there is the closest connection 
between her and revelation, since she is its 
keeper and expounder, " the pillar and 
ground of the truth." Let us, with honest 
minds, examine the proof she can give of so 
high and important a mission. 

11. 

Our former lectures, which have laid down 
the relations of reason to faith, have removed 



220 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

any preliminary difficulties which might be 
raised as to the manner of God's revelation 
or the mode which He may deem best for 
its preservation. There is no reason what- 
ever why the Catholic Church should not be 
that which she claims to be, and no repug- 
nance on the part of God that He should 
make her such. All is resolved into a ques- 
tion of fact, to be determined by evidence. 
Before, however, we approach the proofs of 
her divine mission, we must ask if she is 
really a teacher, with the qualities of which 
our reason has shown the necessity. Here, 
then, we shall find that she does teach ; 
that in so doing she discharges her office 
with clearness subject to the comprehension 
of any one, and with the assurance of an in- 
fallible authority ; and that she is easily ac- 
cessible to all mankind. 

I. No one disputes the fact that the Catho- 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 221 

lie Church is a teacher, maintaining certain 
truths as necessary to salvation through the 
merits of Jesus Christ. She realizes the 
words spoken to the Apostles : " Go ye there- 
fore and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost."* Her principal office is 
to uphold the faith which she has received, 
and no one can be admitted to her com- 
munion or remain in her fold who does not 
accept the truths which she delivers. In 
these matters she proposes nothing to 
opinion, but all to faith founded on the ve- 
racity of God. In matters not revealed there 
is scope for speculation, but the' reasonable 
mind can only believe that which the divine 
voice declares to be true, and therefore be- 
yond the reach of doubt. Such is the cha- 
racteristic of the Catholic Church, and we are 

* St. Matthew xxviii. 19. 



222 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

not acquainted with any other body that 
teaches in like manner. 

2. In the method of her teaching we also 
find clearness and distinctness, which leave 
no room for misapprehension. There is no 
hesitation as to the truth revealed, no pro- 
posal to excite doubt or stimulate investiga- 
tion. She does not say to the inquirer, " I 
will give you the benefit of my opinion, and 
then leave you to judge for yourself." She 
simply answers, " This is the truth, fixed and 
certain, because it has been taught by God, 
who cannot deceive nor be deceived." From 
that sacred trust no temptation has induced 
her to swerve. There is not a Catholic in all 
the earth who is left in any uncertainty, since 
the doctrines of revelation are as explicitly 
contained in the smallest catechism as in the 
most labored theology. The youngest child 
has all that the most learned scholar has of 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 223 

essential truth, and the perfect accord which 
prevails throughout her whole communion 
shows that she does teach with distinctness. 
When, through the frailty of men, errors arise, 
she is quick to detect and expose them, so 
that in her wide-spread borders there can be 
no jarring voice, no discord to mar the har- 
monies of her creed. So far she is just what 
man needs — a guide which never vacillates, 
answering distinctly the great questions of 
the soul, and leading the mind to certitude, 
and therefore to peace. 

3. All this would, however, be of no use, 
nay, it would be fraught with the greatest evil, 
if she were not an infallible teacher. With- 
out unmistakable authority she would only 
lead men into error, and perhaps hopeless 
blindness. We trust that it has been suffi- 
ciently shown that God must teach infallibly if 
He teach at all, and that therefore any agency 



224 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

which He employs is necessarily kept from 
error. That can be no agency of His which 
supports falsehood or conducts to vice. 
There has been much unnecessary miscon- 
ception upon this point so evident to reason. 
The infallibility which the church claims, re- 
sults from the fact that Gcd was her founder, 
and that He promised to guide and keep her 
in the mission on which He sent her. He 
sent her to teach, and therefore was bound to 
prevent her teaching error in His name. 
"You have not chosen me," said our Lord to 
the Apostles, "but I have chosen you, and 
have appointed you, that you should go, and : 
should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should 
remain."* " When the Spirit of truth shall 
come, He shall teach you all -truthV't It was 
of the highest interest to Jesus Christ Him- 



* St. John xv. 1 6. 



t St. John xvi. 13. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 225 

self that the doctrines He came at so much 
cost to teach should be maintained pure 
among men whom He came to redeem, and 
that His revelation should not die out, as 
such a failure would be an argument against 
His divinity. Therefore, in perfect consist- 
ency, the Catholic Church claims infallibility, 
the first and most essential requisite of a 
teacher of supernatural truth. 

4. The church is so accessible to us that 
reason itself could not devise any way by 
which God could more easily teach mankind. 
No one man could reach the entire world, no 
line of individual teachers could be heard by 
all tribes and tongues. But here a vast 
society spreads itself throughout the earth, 
and takes of every nation into its bosom, and 
sends its messengers to every clime. In 
Catholicity, unity is still preserved, that so the 
one voice may speak everywhere, and that in 



226 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

all lands one faith may be preached. We 
confess that all this presupposes the constant 
exercise of divine power. But are we not 
speaking of things supernatural, of God's 
way of making known His revelation to men? 
Are we, then, not to expect the continual aid 
of that same Almighty hand which proposed 
at first to intervene for man's salvation? 
Are we not by " one Spirit baptized into one 
body" ? Is not the Church called " the body 
of Christ, the fullness of Him who filleth all 
in all" ? If we abandon the supernatural 
character of the agency by which revelation 
is preserved, we may as well abandon revela- 
tion itself. So far, therefore, as reason can 
guide us, it shows to us that the Catholic 
Church has all the qualities of a teacher, and 
is fit for the office of instructing mankind. 
Her perfect unity, which no vicissitudes have 
been able to break, speaks everywhere of one 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 227 

unchangeable faith in utterances too plain to 
be misunderstood. No one can be at any 
loss where to find her, nor in any doubt as to 
what her teaching is. There is nothing on 
earth to be compared to her. Her existence 
is a great fact which no intelligent mind can 
ignore, and if she be not a divine teacher, 
there is none upon earth. There is no other 
body which even claims her office, and hence 
we are left to the conclusion that either she 
must be from God or that He has no repre- 
sentative upon earth. 



in. 



The Catholic Church, then, appears before 
us with all the qualities necessary to be the 
agency in making known and preserving 
God's revelation. So far, we find nothing 
which offends our reason ; but, on the con- 



228 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

trary, many things which answer to the very 
demands of our nature. 

But will she be able to present the world 
with proofs of her divine mission such as we 
have shown to be sufficient? This is the 
great question, which we propose now to 
settle, and in such a manner as shall carry 
conviction to every honest mind. 

i. In the remarks we are about to make, 
we shall refer to the Scriptures as authentic 
histories of facts, waiving altogether for the 
moment the question of their inspiration. 
The Catholic Church builds her claims on 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, her founder. 
Several important inquiries at once arise in 
relation to these claims which ought to be 
examined before we proceed to the proofs 
which are given by miracles. These inqui- 
ries are, Who is Jesus Christ ? Did He found 
the Catholic Church, and for what purpose ? 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 229 

Did He promise that it should continue to 
the end of time ? Is the body known as the 
Roman Catholic Church the identical one 
which He founded ? 

In reply to the first question, we declare 
that Jesus Christ is God and Man in one 
person ; that there was no doubt of His man- 
hood, and that, being perfect Man, He pro- 
fessed to be God ; that He is the second 
person of the Holy Trinity, incarnate, or the 
eternal Word made flesh. We need ad- 
vance no proofs to show that He was man, 
since his life is a matter of the world's his- 
tory, and His ignominious sufferings are 
written on its saddest page. That He was 
God also, His words and acts sufficiently 
proved. 

" No man hath ascended into heaven, but 
He that descended from heaven, the Son of 
man who is in heaven. . . . For God 



230 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

so loved the world as to give His only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
may not perish but have life everlasting."* 

" The Jews sought the more to kill Him, 
because He did not only break the Sabbath, 
but also said that God was His Father, 
making Himself equal to God. . . . Then 
Jesus said, As the Father raiseth up the 
dead and giveth life, so the Son also giveth 
life to whom He will. For neither doth the 
Father judge any man, but hath committed 
all judgment to the Son, that all men may 
honor the Son as they honor the Father. 
He who honoreth not the Son honoreth not 
the Father who hath sent Him."f 

" Amen, amen, I say unto you, before 
Abraham was made I am."t 

" Dost thou believe in the Son of God ? 

* St. John iii. 13-16. 
f St. John v. 18-23. t St. John viii. 53. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 231 

He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that 
I may believe in Him ? And Jesus saith to 
him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He 
that talketh with thee."* 

" I and the Father are one."t " He that 
seeth me seeth the Father also."t 

To these plain words of Jesus Christ we 
add the language of St. John : 

" In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
. . . And the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
among us, and we saw His glory, the glory 
as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth."§ 

The burden of His accusation before the 
Jews, was blasphemy in that He had declar- 
ed Himself the Son of God, and this was 
the title which He assumed, and which was 

* St. John ix. 35-7. f St. John x. 30. 

% St. John xiv. 9. § St. John i. 1, 14. 



232 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

even affirmed beneath the cross. So says St. 
Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews. "God 
having spoken on divers occasions, and 
many ways, in times past, unto the fathers, by 
the prophets : last of all, in these days hath 
spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath ap- 
pointed heir of all things, by whom also He 
made the world."* 

That the claims of Jesus Christ were true is 
abundantly proved by His miracles, wrought 
so many times and in the presence of nume- 
rous and competent witnesses. The evidence 
of these miracles is unquestionable, and must 
be received by every honest mind on the 
plainest principles of reason. His own death 
and resurrection were predicted by Himself, 
and took place precisely according to His 
words. The greatest of all miracles was His 



* E. Hebrews i. 1-2. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 233 

resurrection, of which there are testimonies 
such as no one can refuse to accept. As He 
died publicly on a cross, so He rose from the 
grave in the presence of the guard who were 
watching His sepulchre, and was seen and 
known by many and indubitable witnesses. 
Therefore, on the simplest principles of evi- 
dence, no one can doubt that He was pre- 
cisely what He professed to be — the Son of 
God, made man for our salvation. 

The second question admits of an easy 
answer. The Scriptures record the fact that 
the Church was established by Him, and for 
the purpose of teaching the world the truths 
He came to make known. 

" And it came to pass in those days that 
He went out into a mountain to pray, and 
He passed the whole night in the prayer of 
God, and when it was day He called His dis- 



234 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

ciples, and He chose twelve of them whom 
also He named Apostles."* 

" And if he will not hear the Church, let 
him be unto thee as the heathen and the publi- 
can. Amen, I say unto you, whatsoever ye 
shall bind upon earth, it shall be bound also 
in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall loose upon 
earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."f 

" And I say to thee (Simon) that thou art 
Peter, and upon this rock will I build my 
Church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it."t 

The Acts of the Apostles record the forma- 
tion and constant increase of the Church 
which Jesus Christ established. 

" And the Lord added daily to their society 
(that of the Apostles) such as should be 
saved."§ 

*St. Lukevi. 12, 13. f St. Matthew xviii 16. 17. 
% St. Matthew xvi. 18. § Acts ii. 47. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 235 

" Take heed to yourselves, and to all the 
flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath placed 
you bishops, to rule the Church of God, 
which He hath purchased with His own 
blood."* 

These texts, with many others which might 
be quoted, leave no doubt of the fact that 
Christ founded a Church and provided all 
the necessary means for its existence. The 
purpose for which He established it, is also 
plainly shown by the same historical testi- 
mony. 

" All power is given unto me in heaven 
and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations ; baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you."t 



* Acts xx. 28. 



t St. Matthew xxviii. 18-20. 



236 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

" When He, the spirit of truth, shall come, 
He shall teach you all truth."* 

" The house of God, which is the Church 
of the living God, the pillar and ground of 
the truth."t 

Jesus Christ came as a teacher to reveal to 
man- the way of salvation through His blood. 
There is no doubt, then, that the end of the 
Church which He formed is to make known 
to all mankind the blessed truths which He 
taught. 

But, thirdly, was it His intention that this 
Church should continue to the end of time ? 
If the object of His coming into the world 
was to reveal to men new and saving truths, 
and if the end of the Church was to teach 
those truths to the successive generations of 
mankind, then by the plainest deductions of 



* St. John xvi. 13. f 1 St. Timothy iii. 15. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 237 

reason, the Church ought to continue until 
the work for which it was instituted is accom- 
plished. It is absurd to suppose that Christ 
died and sent out His Apostles for the bene- 
fit of only one age, leaving all who were to 
come after without any guidance, and in 
danger of forgetting all He had taught at so 
great a cost. Whatever He did, must have 
been for the advantage of the whole world, 
as the evangelist tells us, He was " the true 
light, that enlighteneth every man that 
cometh into the world." But we are not 
left even to the evident deductions of rea- 
son; we have the words of Christ Himself 
assuring us that His Church shall never 
fail. 

" Upon this rock will I build my Church - 
and; the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it."* 

* St. Matthew xvi. 18. 



238 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

" Behold, I am with you all days, even unto 
the consummation of the world." # 

" I have chosen you and appointed you, 
that you should go and bring forth fruit, and 
that your fruit should remain." t 

As to the question whether the Roman 
Catholic Church is the identical church 
which Jesus Christ founded, we very briefly 
reply. It is the lineal successor of that 
church, having all its essential notes, unity, 
catholicity, apostolicity, and sanctity. The 
uninterrupted succession of bishops can at 
once be traced to the Apostles, while there 
are many testimonies of identity, as, for ex- 
ample, the series of fathers and doctors, the 
decrees of councils, general and particular, 
and monuments of a complete ecclesiastical 
unity. There have been heresies and 
schisms ; but as revolutions in states and even 

* St. Matthew xxviii. 20. f St. John xv. 16. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 239 

secessions of provinces do not impair the 
identity of a kingdom, so no divisions have 
ever been able to break the unity of the 
Catholic Church. It alone has prescription 
and any just claims to antiquity. Attempts 
to identify any of the reformed bodies with 
the ancient ecclesiastical organization, are 
singular failures, both logically and histori- 
cally. 

Again, the Roman Catholic Church is the 
only body existing with the necessary quali- 
ties of unity in discipline and infallibility in 
teaching. The fact that no one of the Pro- 
testant churches makes claim to such quali- 
ties is sufficient proof that they are all of 
human origin, and, therefore, in no way 
formed by the hands of Jesus Christ. And 
so we come to the conclusion that either the 
Roman Catholic Church is the church which 
our Lord established or that there is no such 



240 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

church on earth. There was a long time 
when all who professed themselves Chris- 
tians acknowledged the office and powers 
of that church, for there was no other Chris- 
tian communion in the world. And in these 
latter unhappy days of dissent, there is no 
rival which even pretends to be what that 
church is, or assumes to teach men with au- 
thority from God. We cannot admit that 
the church which Jesus Christ founded has 
become corrupt, or ceased to exist, without 
making His words untrue ; and if we make 
Him guilty of ignorance or falsehood, we 
cannot believe Him to be God ; and if we do 
not believe Him to be God, as He profess- 
ed to be, we actually declare Him an im- 
postor, and the whole fabric of Christianity 
falls to the ground. Nay, even more, the 
principles of reason and the laws of evidence 
are also subverted, and man becomes a seep- 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 241 



tic, without light and without God. So 
closely connected are the first truths of re- 
velation with the claims of the Catholic 
Church that, to an honest mind, they really 
stand or fall together. 

We are now prepared to examine the 
proofs which can be given to show the di- 
vine mission of the Catholic Church, accord- 
ing to the tests laid down in the preceding 
lectures. Having shown the continuity of 
this church with the revelation introduced 
into this world by Jesus Christ, we proceed 
in regular order. 

1. Miracles are necessary, in the beginning 
of any supernatural intervention from God, 
to authenticate the messenger employed by 
Him. A revelation once established by in- 
dubitable evidence needs no further authen- 
tication. It stands for ever, and the precepts 



242 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

it enjoins are binding until their abrogation 
by divine authority manifested under the 
same nature of proofs. Jesus Christ was 
the founder of the Catholic Church, as we 
have demonstrated, and His mission was 
abundantly attested by miracles more fre- 
quent and remarkable than those of any pro- 
phet who had preceded Him. His Apostles, 
also, who were sent in His name, worked 
many and remarkable miracles in the pre- 
sence of witnesses hostile to their religion 
and totally indisposed to deceive. The fact 
that these wonders were wrought is gener- 
ally admitted as a matter of history, and can- 
not be honestly contradicted. We have, 
then, sufficient evidence to put beyond all 
question the divine mission of Christ and 
His Apostles 

The church, therefore, which owes its ex- 
istence to their labors has the full weight of 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 243 

the evidence which authenticated them. It 
must in reason be admitted the teacher of 
truth until, by the same proofs, a new mes- 
senger be substituted in its place. On no 
other principles can the miracles of Jesus 
Christ and His Apostles be made to bear 
upon any system of Christianity existing at 
this day. For Christianity, introduced into 
this world by means of a founder whose 
deeds are part of human history, must have 
an historical life, and be treated as the rigid 
continuation of the mission of Christ. He 
who asserts that the Catholic Church is not 
the lineal successor of the church established 
by Christ asserts, at the same moment, the 
failure, and at an early day, of the revelation 
made known through Him, and the utter in- 
competency of the means He employed. 
Yet, unnecessary as they are to rigid evi- 
dence, miracles have never ceased in the 



244 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

ages all along to testify to the divine char- 
acter of the church. They have occurred in 
every age, and even in our own day. Even 
unbelievers have admitted this, and though 
they have sometimes referred them to arts of 
designing men, yet, in any well-attested case, 
there has been no evidence of such arts, and 
no possibility of their exercise if there had 
been any disposition to deceive. Miracles, 
such as these we allude to, have happened in 
public sight and before witnesses every way 
competent, and have been of such a nature 
that no human power could have produced 
them. Not one saint is added to the calen- 
dar of the church without the evidence of 
miracles wrought through his means. And 
the testimony is sifted and tried by every 
ingenuity, lest there should be deception or 
mistake of the imagination. Persons unac- 
quainted with the processes of the Catholic 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 245 

Church would be surprised at the rigor with 
which the evidence of any thing supernatural 
is treated, and at the length of time occupied 
in such investigations. If the well-substan- 
tiated miracles of the church be not admit- 
ted, then nothing superhuman can be allowed. 
The wonderful works of Christ and His 
Apostles have no stronger weight of testi- 
mony. We have heard of those who are 
willing to receive only the miracles recorded 
in the Scriptures, and at once reject all 
others because they are not there mentioned. 
We need not say that any honest mind will 
see at once that such a course is the fruit of 
ignorance and prejudice, and contrary to 
every dictate of reason. 

We find, therefore, the Catholic Church 
to have been well authenticated at her founda- 
tion, and that, through the centuries of her 
existence, she has given many and unmis- 



246 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

takable proofs of her divine character. In 
this respect, as in many others, she stands 
solitary and alone, having no rival on earth. 

2. The testimony of prophecy is not want- 
ing to confirm the divine character of Jesus 
Christ and His Church. In the first place, 
the prophets of the old law had distinctly 
predicted His generation of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, His office, and His sufferings, and these 
predictions were exactly fulfilled in Him and 
in no other person. 

" The Lord himself shall give you a sign. 
Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a 
son ; and shall call his name Emmanuel."* 

" A child is born unto us, and a son is 
given unto us, and the government shall be 
upon His shoulder, and His name shall 
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the 



* Isaias vii. 14. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 247 

mighty, the Father of the world to come, 
the Prince of peace."* 

" He was offered because it was His own 
will, and He opened not His mouth. He 
shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and 
he shall be dumb as a lamb before His 
shearer, and He shall not open His mouth."! 

"And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall 
be slain, and the people that shall deny Him 
shall not be His. And a people with their 
leader that shall come shall destroy the city 
and the sanctuary."$ 

Our Lord Himself gave many proofs of 
His divine knowledge, not only in reading 
the hearts of man, but in distinct predictions 
of the future. Such were the prophecies 
by which He foretold the nature and circum- 
stances of His passion and resurrection, the 



* Isaias ix. 6. 



f Isaias liii. 7. 



% Daniel ix. 26. 



248 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

denial of St. Peter, the treason of Judas, the 
dispersion of His disciples, and many similar 
events. He predicted also the diffusion of 
His Gospel throughout the Gentile world, 
the perpetuity of the church which He was 
to build upon Peter, the persecution and mar- 
tyrdom of His Apostles. Distinguished 
among all is His wonderful prophecy of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, which, by the testi- 
mony of heathen writers, was fulfilled to the 
very letter. And even, three centuries after, 
when Julian the Apostate endeavored to 
rebuild the temple, the hand of God was 
evident in the signs and wonders which ren- 
dered futile his blasphemous audacity. 
There can, therefore, be no doubt that Jesus 
Christ was a true prophet, and that His 
words are to be taken in their literal sense 
as the words of God. The system which He 
founded cannot fail, and the church which 



Revelation and the CatJwlic Church. 249 

He established rests on His divine autho- 
rity. 

That the gift of prophecy has been pour- 
ed out at various times upon many members 
of His Church there can be no doubt; and 
although this has not been for the authenti- 
cation of a revelation already made and suf- 
ficiently attested, yet it has always been in 
confirmation of Catholic faith, and to the 
exaltation of the true religion. 

3. The progress of the Catholic Church 
has been so wonderful that this alone, under 
all the circumstances, is proof of her divine 
origin. We find arrayed against her all hu- 
man power, and every kind of opposition, both 
moral and physical. Her origin from a Jew 
crucified in extraordinary ignominy ; the 
condition of twelve rude fishermen who were 
her Apostles ; the nature of her doctrine, in- 
volving mysteries on the one side, and on 
the other declaring constant war against hu- 



250 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

man passions, and inculcating precepts diffi- 
cult of observation ; the profession of Judaism 
and heathenism for many ages ; the practices 
of idolatry, with all the gross superstitions 
that accompanied them — all these things con- 
spired to render the progress of Christianity 
possible only by divine power. To this must 
be added likewise the pride of philosophers, 
the avarice of the priests, and the entire 
strength of the civil arm employed to crush 
out the new religion by a wide-spread cruelty, 
and a persecution unparalleled in the annals 
of time. In spite of all these difficulties, the 
Catholic Church took lasting root in Judea, 
where her Master had been crucified, and, 
passing the bounds even of Galilee, spread 
throughout the Gentile world, and soon made 
the capital of heathenism, from which the 
proud Csesars ruled the world, the seat of its 
chief bishop. The Apostles and the first 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 25 I 

bishops became martyrs for the truth they 
preached, and Christians everywhere were 
subjected to exile and death ; yet above all 
their religion triumphed. The civil power 
was extended to crush it, the passions of men 
were incensed against it, yet no force was 
able to subdue its wonderful vitality. The 
Apostles, relying upon the promises and 
power of Christ, went through the nations 
with the success of conquerors ; so that after 
a few years St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude 
were able to write " Catholic Epistles" to the 
whole world. St. Paul does not hesitate to 
assert that the Gospel had brought forth fruit 
in the whole world, (Coloss. i. 6,) and that the 
faith of the Romans was spoken of through- 
out the earth. (Rom. i. 8.) From the most 
certain monuments we know that an immense 
multitude of Christians flourished in the first 
three ages, and that, after the most severe per- 



252 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

secution under Diocletian, in which the hea- 
then boasted that they would extinguish utterly 
the religion of Christ, the greatest portion of 
the Roman empire was united to the Catho- 
lic Church. Now, no one can attribute this 
success to any human pow T er, of which there 
is no trace, and therefore it must be ascribed 
to God alone, who, as He had many times 
authenticated the Gospel by miracles, caused 
it to live and increase by the still greater 
exercise of His divine power. For in truth 
the progress of the Christian religion is the 
greatest of all miracles. The form in which 
Christianity diffused itself was a yet greater 
evidence of continual divine assistance, for 
everywhere was preserved the most rigid 
unity in faith and discipline. Heresies which 
arose only proved the supernatural power of 
the Church, which could detect and resist 
them. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 253 

The wonderful preservation of the Catholic 
Church even to our own day, through the 
terrible vicissitudes of nineteen centuries, is 
another proof that she is the only representa- 
tive of Christianity, and that Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, was her founder. In the history 
of the Catholic Church, we behold the per- 
petual spectacle of every kind of opposition 
on the one side and continual triumph on the 
other. She alone has wonderfully fulfilled 
the prophecy, " Thy gates shall be open con- 
tinually : they shall not be shut day nor night, 
that the strength of the Gentiles may be 
brought to thee, and that their kings may be 
brought. For the nation and kingdom that 
will not serve thee shall perish." # " No wea- 
pon that is formed against thee shall prosper."t 

Against her have conspired the Jew and 



* Isaias lx. 11, 12. 



\ Isaias liv. 17. 



254 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

the Pagan, the Persian and the Islamite ; nume- 
rous sects of every kind, from the earlier here- 
tics to the more virulent divisions of Protest- 
antism ; wars without and contentions within. 
And often arrayed on the side of these hostile 
sects have been the most powerful kings, who 
have left no means untried to extinguish the 
Catholic religion. And yet the Church has 
held her way in spite of every opposition, re- 
gaining in one age the children she lost in 
another, and ever repairing her losses with a 
superhuman vitality. There is no nation 
nor kingdom which has lived any thing like 
her memorable life, or been subject to her 
strange vicissitudes. She has seen her 
enemies one by one pass away before her 
face, and even the monuments of their mighty 
power have crumbled into dust. Surely 
such a history as hers is an evidence of more 
than human power, a proof that she alone is 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 255 

the inheritor of the graces and miracles of 
Pentecost. And at this day, when men have 
so often foretold her extinction, she appears 
before the world with all the energy of youth 
and every promise of perpetuity. She is the 
only guardian of revelation, the only teacher 
of a distinct and unalterable creed. Rational- 
ists call her obsolete amid the mighty 
marches of modern society, but yet she 
applies herself with vigor to the needs of 
the age, and, judging from the past, she will 
live and flourish when their vagaries are for- 
gotten. To our minds, the very existence of 
the Catholic Church is one of the most strik- 
ing of miracles, one of the most convincing 
of proofs that God is her founder. Were 
man her author, she would have long ago 
succumbed to the law of decay and the 
terrible arms which have been used against 
her. 



256 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

4. The doctrines taught by the Catholic 
Church are of such a nature, and their in- 
fluence upon mankind has been so beneficial, 
that herein is found another proof of her di- 
vine mission. Her teaching is worthy of 
God, and her discipline is formed to lead 
men to the highest degree of perfection. 
The mysteries which she proposes to our 
faith elevate all our ideas of the divine 
wisdom and mercy. They are entirely in 
accordance with all we know of God in 
nature, and they lead to an admiration and 
love of Him which become intelligent crea- 
tures redeemed by the wonderful condescen- 
sion of their Creator. All her dogmas stand 
upon the sole word of God, and yet they are 
calculated in themselves to exalt man even in 
the sphere of intellect. 

And as for their influence on the heart 
and life of man, we need only say that they 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 257 

tend directly to purify the soul from sin, to 
lead it in the path of self-denial and self- 
conquest, and so to union with the infinite 
holiness. No reasonable mind would judge 
of the Catholic religion from its unfaithful 
members. Let any one look well to those 
whose steps are ordered by the strict obser- 
vance of its precepts, and in them he shall 
find purity, reverence of God, faith in His 
providence, and every virtue. The power of 
our religion goes down to the very inmost 
recesses of the heart, and purifies the foun- 
tain whence human actions proceed. It 
were vain to speak of individual lives, whose 
exact merits are known to the omniscient 
eye alone ; but any one may judge of the 
results, which are evident upon the face of 
society. And the Catholic Church alone is 
the promoter and mother of heroic virtue, 
leading her children in the higher paths, 



258 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

from which the world in its fever of passion 
shrinks back. She alone can point to a 
noble army of martyrs, an unending train of 
confessors, a holy choir of virgins, who have 
counted all things but dross that they might 
win Christ and follow closely His footsteps. 
Let men reason as they may, they must ad- 
mit that here is a victory over the flesh, a 
realization of the invisible and eternal, a high 
morality of which no spirit of evil can be the 
author. They who are led by the teaching 
of the Catholic Church are trained in the 
principles of faith and obedience which lie at 
the foundation of all religion. And were 
men more guided by her wise counsels, how 
soon would the evils which menace social 
order pass away, how quickly would be dis- 
pelled the errors which threaten to destroy 
the hopes of all civil government ! Did time 
allow, we might easily take up each portion 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 259 

of the Catholic creed, and show its salutary 
influence upon the human heart. While 
man is lifted up toward his Maker, and 
taught to look beyond the things of sense, 
he loses nothing of his responsibility. Grace 
extinguishes not the powers of nature, but 
only elevates them, and enables man to do 
good works meritorious of reward, in the 
true and just probation which is to terminate 
by an impartial judgment such as an Omnis- 
cient God alone can make. Here are all the 
incentives to virtue that can be drawn from 
the great motives of fear and love. With a 
fixed and certain creed, with moral obliga- 
tions clearly defined, the Catholic has a plain 
and simple course. If he fail of peace here 
and happiness hereafter, it will be through 
his own inexcusable fault. Before him is 
continually placed the all-perfect example of 
his Master, Jesus Christ, with its divine les- 



260 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

sons of patience, meekness, and self-sacrifice. 
And around him are the many witnesses 
who have gone before to animate and en- 
courage him by their good deeds — the saints 
of the church, whose virtue the world itself 
applauds, the teachers of all that is high and 
holy. To the Catholic religion belongs the 
honor of such lives, for she formed them in 
her school, and from her inspirations they 
drew their vigor and beauty. 

Far different is it with Protestantism, 
which has no distinctive features, no one 
creed, no one school of morality. And the 
virtue which is seen among its adherents is 
really to be attributed to doctrines of the an- 
cient creed, which it has retained, rather than 
to the denials or negative statements which 
are its peculiarity, and which, from their very 
nature, can have no positive influence upon 
the heart and life. 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 26 L 



IV. 

We have only now to ask if the Catholic 
Church, with all the qualities we have seen, 
and the proofs of divine mission we have ex- 
amined, has a true life and the promise of 
perseverance. 

■In answer to this question We need only 
argue from the past, and conclude that an 
organization which has endured through so 
many centuries and in spite of so many un- 
exampled persecutions will certainly with- 
stand any future attack which enemies visible 
or invisible may bring against it. Nothing 
but a divine power could have kept alive the 
Catholic Church in the clash of conflicts 
which have cast many a mighty kingdom 
into oblivion. The same divine power will 
preserve her to the end, and until her work is 
accomplished. God's promises cannot fail, 



262 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

and, as we have demonstrated, she alone is 
the fulfilment of His gracious word. 

And there is a characteristic of true vi- 
tality which belongs to her, and to nothing 
else upon earth, which is an unmistakable 
sign of her divine origin. While the world 
changes, and seasons show the power of 
decay over all things human, she never 
changes. She has ever the same doctrine, 
the same exhortations to virtue, the same 
way of dealing with souls. Her features are 
ever the same, easily known, and strongly 
marked ; and if you go back to the early day, 
or seek for her in later days, you will find the 
same unvarying faith, the same inflexibility 
in teaching the word of life committed to her 
trust. Her great communion spans the earth 
from north to south, from east to west, and 
yet her children are of one mind, one belief, 
and one hope. The Catholic is ever at home, 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 263 

whether he kneels before his lowly altar in 
regions just converted to faith, or bows down 
in the ancient temple where all around him 
are the bright memories of the apostolic day. 
The man of science and the unlettered 
peasant meet together in the confession of 
one glorious creed, not in accents of doubt, 
but in the bold language of a faith more 
certain than sight — -faith which is " the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things unseen." 

Who can deny the work of God, or ven- 
ture to ascribe such concord to human 
power ? Who will not grant to the Catholic 
Church the supernatural life which thus far 
has marked her wonderful career, which has 
distinguished her from every society which 
has appeared on the page of history ? 

" Behold, I am with you all days, even 
unto the consummation of the world." 



264 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

" Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my 
word shall not pass away." If the Catholic 
Church could have been destroyed, she would 
long since have vanished from the earth. 
Now, when she stands before us after eigh- 
een centuries in all the vigor of youth, shall 
she not persevere to the end to the glory of 
Jesus Christ her founder, and the salvation 
of men whom He redeemed ? Yes ; the only 
witness which God has upon earth, the only 
"pillar and ground of the truth," she shall 
finish her glorious career, stand in her lot 
amid every storm, and only deliver up her 
great commission when Christ, her master, 
shall come again to gather together His elect, 
and establish His reign of everlasting peace. 

Here, therefore, we conclude our brief dis- 
course. We have shown the nature and 
sphere of both reason and faith, and by the 



Revelation and the Catholic Church. 265 

deductions of reason alone have been able to 
know that God has made a revelation to man, 
and that this revelation has been committed 
to the Catholic Church, that through her we 
may learn the divine purposes of grace and 
the wisdom that leads to salvation. Here 
are harmonized all that we have learned in 
the light of nature, and by the more resplen- 
dent beams of grace. Here the soul which 
thirsts for truth shall find itself satisfied. Here 
the heart which yearns for God shall taste 
the well-spring of delight. Oh ! that the sun 
of righteousness would arise upon our belov- 
ed country, and guide minds honest and true 
to the rest they long for, that the mists of 
error and prejudice might melt away, and 
display to the unquiet wanderer the home of 
faith in its true beauty! His thanksgiving 
would go up to God with the royal psalmist : 
" This is my rest for ever and ever ; here will 



266 Revelation and the Catholic Church. 

I dwell, for I have chosen it." # " How lovely 
are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! My 
soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the 
Lord. My heart and my flesh have re- 
joiced in the living God. For the sparrow 
hath found herself a house, and the turtle a 
nest : Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king 
und my God." t 

* Psalm cxxxi. 14. f Psalm lxxxiii. 1-4. 



